Sharks in the Swimming Pool
by CodependentLiza
Summary: Profoundly submissive Bella is assigned to profoundly dominant lab partner Edward in an innovative sex-ed. program that will expand their understanding of the possibilities for romantic partnerships as they negotiate their own. Pushing boundaries of propriety and comfort, they learn to appreciate Bella's vulnerability, Edward's strength, and the gifts their pairing brings. AH/cc's
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: Of course, all Twilight-based characters, settings and plot elements belong to the marvelous Stephenie Meyer. Thank you, Ms. Meyer, for sharing!_

_Also, I owe a large debt of gratitude to the late BDSM author Jon Jacobs and his recent followers for both the nature of this story and my ability to write it (for more details, read my profile). It is through their writing that I was introduced to the concept and terminology of "profound" dominance and submission._

_However, the story to follow is otherwise my own creation, conceived of the moment I asked myself: "What if I had figured out how my sexuality was different from average BEFORE I had to make adult decisions? What if I had been part of a community that educated, with intention and compassion, its young people in different ways of being in relationship, not just in the mechanics of reproduction and disease prevention?" And then, bringing it into absolute fantasy-land where I find so much comfort residing, I added, "And what if a perfectly-matched profound dominant was in that class with me?" Hey, it's possible, right? (I hear that snickering! I didn't say it was likely!)_

_So here's my answer to myself, in the form of one perfectly lovely, though—as I've already admitted—highly unlikely, as well as terribly lawsuit-courting should it ever actually be attempted, scenario. Enjoy if you like, but be warned: true profoundly dominant males who are ethical and loving are probably even rarer than vampires. Sorry._

_p.s. Forgive my apparent hypocrisy, and please, beware the internet! It is not a safe place for self-discovery unless one is very, very careful. And skeptical. And guarded. And experienced enough to have a shot at recognizing a predator when they approach. And finally, in frequent communication with real-world friends with whom one can be totally honest and open so that if something does go badly, someone else knows what computer file to open in order to try to fix it. As much as anything important in life can ever truly be "fixed" once it's broken. Best wishes and loving thoughts to you, Liza._

_p.s.#2: To all the 16-year-old through twenty-something iterations of me out there (and knowing, of course, that I'm a middle-aged iteration of them)... You! Yes, you with the copy of A Little Princess and the daddy complex! Do not dabble in the BDSM community, on-line or in person, as a desperate attempt to stave off the suffering and pain of existence! It will not help! You will be eaten alive and spit back out! Explore carefully, and slowly, and conservatively when you are least desperate, and use fantasy stories like this as pain medication and NOT as a roadmap. I am writing this story exactly because it NEVER HAPPENED for me, and most likely IT WILL NOT HAPPEN FOR YOU EITHER. I know it's not fair, I know it hurts, I know it's lonely beyond words, but once you accept the pain of it, I swear it gets a little better. Not a lot, but a little. And then a little more. And before you know it, you'll be okay. Hang in there. I care. xo liza_

"Edward Cullen." It was three-quarters of the way through biology class when Mr. Banner finally read my name off the list he was using to send students out, in pairs, to meet with someone—a psychologist from the University—who who was overseeing a new twist on sex ed. at Forks High. Termed "Self-Study," it had already spawned any number of crass jokes in the halls and locker rooms. But still it was seen by most of us as much preferable to the traditional human sexuality component of the junior-year biology class.

Why require 17-year-olds to take sex ed. so long after the window for good (and bad) decision-making had, for most of us, been opened? Because of a paper on the development of Forks High School's graduation requirements I'd written for the local history and civics class I had to take sophomore year, I know the answer to that question. Back in the '80's, a former-hippie school board member had decided that older students needed to be reminded of the bird-and-bee basics they had already been subjected to in eighth grade. Her argument had been that doing so would support students' "personal growth and development." The more conservative members of the school board saw it as an opportunity to scare wayward students back onto the straight and narrow. Thus two normally divergent philosophies united for once, allowing the proposal to pass unanimously. Forks' juniors had been suffering ever since.

I was in agreement with the popular assessment that this year's innovation could be nothing but an improvement, especially after learning that a mortified-as-usual Mr. Banner would still be overseeing the old-school approach every Monday for the rest of the semester. As unlikely as it may seem, the powers that be had managed to make this default option even more unpleasant than in years past with the addition of a class presentation requirement on an assigned STD. It was easy to imagine the jokes that would be running once assignments were made about who "had" gonorrhea, or herpes, and enduring _that_ degree of inanity would most likely be even worse than completion of the actual assignment.

So, I had been careful about turning in both my own and my parents' signed consent forms, and my signed agreement to maintain the absolute confidentiality of what my partner and I would discuss. The penalty for failing to respect this confidentiality was an unceremonious return to Mr. Banner and chlamydia central; I didn't need this threat though to know I would keep my mouth shut. There is almost never anything good to be gained from feeding the high-school gossip beast…it is definitely a monster that eats its own.

Despite agreeing to participate, I was pretty pissed about the terms of participation in the research study, given that the researchers were going to be appropriating my conversations and written assignments for their own purposes. I just don't like the idea of a bunch of academic leeches using my words to further their own agenda, without my input or truly informed (as to their opinions about me and my behavior and thoughts, and its support or lack thereof for whatever split-hairs theory they're cooking up) consent.

Sure, my parents and I were granting what passed as legal consent now, but it was a shitty way to go about it—asking for blanket permission up front to do what they will when we hadn't yet had the opportunity to take the measure of those in charge of the program, or been able to weigh the value, to me and to the researchers, of the specific information they would want to be obtaining. So I planned to be on guard, and to play both the situation and the people ostensibly in charge of it well.

But there was one aspect of this experience I couldn't control, and that had me—if I was being honest, which I didn't necessarily plan to be—a little stressed: the assignment of study partners. In order to make the experience more "real" and "meaningful," (the researchers' words, not mine), each participant was to be assigned a partner, as well as a topic on which to focus our reflection and enquiry. I didn't much care about the topic, figuring I could spout b.s. on anything they liked; but the selection of a partner was more important. Much more important.

So who was mine? After Angela and Lauren walked back into the room, each of them surprisingly content-looking given their pairing, Mr. Banner had read my name off and gone right back to his love affair with mitochondria. I sat, as patiently as I could, waiting for him to self-correct. I was just getting ready to interrupt him and ask when he looked at me, still waiting for my partner's name.

"Edward?" he asked. "Didn't you hear me read your name?"

"I heard you, Mr. Banner," I replied respectfully. I am careful always to seem respectful towards those having power over me. I know, as do they, that it is a temporary power that will, in most cases, soon be superseded by my fortunate superiority in intelligence and resources. But while I am underage and enrolled in this school I am vulnerable, and they all know it. At least Mr. Banner doesn't seem to take any pleasure in lording his authority over me—unlike certain others, such as Coach Clapp.

In response to my noncommittal answer, for though I am always respectful, I also don't give up anything more than is necessary, Mr. Banner raised his eyebrows. Then he asked, "Are you having second thoughts about participating, Edward?"

"No, I'm just waiting to hear who I'm paired with," I answered, as if it was no big deal. And it shouldn't have been, but I was starting to feel like it was.

"Oh! Well, that makes sense; but you're not paired with anyone. It's just you at the end of the list I was given. Must have had odd numbers."

Inside, I was crushed. Outside, I smiled politely, my face a mask. Then I nodded, and said, "All right, I'll head out," as I stood up, grabbed my belongings and started down the aisle.

I hadn't admitted to myself up until that moment how hopeful I'd been to be paired with a certain fellow class member, but I had been. Extremely so. And especially as the class had gone on. Just before my name was called, there weren't many names left that hadn't been called already, and most of the few remaining I either knew for certainty or had a shrewd guess had not returned their consent forms. Which left, to my delight: one Isabella Swan, my lab partner.

Most people call her Bella, like her father does, though she has never expressed a preference on the matter. At least not to me. So some of the time, I use her beautiful—yes, I know that's a literal translation, but it really fits—full name. It always makes her blush, which is a wonderful bonus.

And yes, I have been harboring a secret crush on the unbelievably-shy Miss Swan for as long as she has been a student here… about four months. She had both my interest and affections, without having the first clue about it, I'm sure, ever since her first day at Forks when she walked fearfully into the classroom, got her seat assignment from Mr. Banner (who evidently scared her, as milquetoast as he was, is and evermore will be), and stumbled into the seat next to mine.

After tripping and sprawling onto her lab stool, catching herself with her hands, she had briefly looked up at me and—accidentally, I'm now certain—made eye contact. Besides the beautiful blush that colored her cheeks, her eyes were absolutely intoxicating: so full of fear and shame and sadness, and communicating them all to me at top volume.

I was instantly curious about what had her feeling all those things, and feeling them so strongly, her initial awkwardness not seeming near enough of an explanation. I was even more intrigued when I watched, my head cocked and an expression of interest on my face I have no doubt but no words having left my lips, as a heavy metal door slammed shut behind her eyes and cut off the flow of emotional information. This was just before her head dropped and she righted herself on the stool, studying her knees as she politely offered a quiet "Sorry about that."

I had to manfully suppress an extremely strong and equally inexplicable urge to gather her up in my arms and cradle her in my lap. Momentarily freaked the hell out by this ridiculous impulse, I fortunately got my head out of my ass fast enough to just offer a mild greeting in return; something basic and low-key (never mind that I still _really _wanted to touch her) along the lines of "Don't worry about it. I'm Edward, by the way."

I waited for her response, expecting her to introduce herself to me. But she said nothing more than a tiny, barely-audible "Hi," whispered in my direction, and accompanied by a quick and shy smile, delivered so fast I barely had time to catch it.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself after unpacking a notebook and pen, and appeared to focus all her attention up to the front, where Mr. Banner was drawing himself up to start class. I say "appeared to" because it was obvious to me where her true attention lay, and that was with me. It was obvious too that the metal door behind her eyes had only succeeded in neutralizing the public appearance of her emotions, and she was still very much in the grip of them. The anxiety buzzed off her so clearly I swear there was an audible hum, and both fear and shame were evident in the hunch of her shoulders and the hanging of her head. Not to mention the myriad other tells, like the hand-shaking, the arms-holding-her-torso-together, the lip-biting. Oh God, the lip-biting.

Never had I responded (inwardly only, thank God) in so primal a manner to a girl before. I wanted to ravage her, I wanted to comfort her, I wanted quite simply to _consume_ her, and the strength of this wanting horrified me. I was not used to feeling vulnerable, and the degree of desire I was feeling for a complete stranger, and an enormously socially awkward one at that, was both unasked for and unwanted.

Somehow I made it through that first hour without touching her or asking her out, and after that I had been determined to keep it all-business during biology class. However, that didn't keep me from directly and indirectly attempting to find out all I could about her, without making my interest obvious. What I uncovered wasn't much, but then there wasn't much to be uncovered: she announced most of the important facts about herself in loud, clear tones with her body language and deferential words.

Still, for details I knew now that she had left her mother's home in Phoenix in a self-sacrificial act of filial loyalty on the occasion of her mother's new marriage last summer to a much younger man. (I had ascertained his age from the website of his minor-league baseball team, having first dragged out of Isabella the nature of his employment during the single question-of-a-personal-nature I soon gave in and allowed myself towards her each week.) From observation and gossip, I also knew she was terrified of men generally and her father in particular, although she seemed to be surprisingly comfortable with me.

Though she never asked, I always made sure to offer reciprocal information about myself. So, for example, she was now in possession of the information that my father was the Chief Surgeon and Medical Administrator of the Forks Community Hospital and Clinic, a career move made from the high-end of Chicago medicine at the end of my 8th-grade year, and which gave me the dubious benefit of a smaller pool in which to be an enormously big fish.

It had been my older brother Emmett's fault that we moved. He'd gotten involved with the wrong crowd and had made some stupid decisions as a result, narrowly missing a juvenile conviction of drug possession and reckless endangerment. Although a sweetheart of a guy, and loyal to a fault (thus the stupid decisions), he had inherited all of the brawn and none of the judgment from the Cullen-Platt gene pool.

Uncertain what less-dramatic step would untangle my brother from his nasty friends and burgeoning drug habit, my parents announced we would all be moving back to the Platt ancestral home in Bumf #$, Washington, otherwise known as Forks. Luckily, Mom's grandparents had been loaded, and though her parents had neglected it some since the elder generation died, the house was easily brought back to its earlier beauty and made much more modernly comfortable than ever before. This has been a source of endless pleasure and satisfaction for my mother. My father has taken similar pleasure in rehabbing the antiquated Forks medical establishment, both physically and procedurally, so that the two of them now feel the move to be the best decision they've ever made.

As their child, I have taken a little umbrage with this position, and when I made the point to my mother—that perhaps she might rank deciding to have her children above the exile I have been enduring in the annals of good decisions—she just laughed and told me more than I ever wanted to know about my conception. "Oh, honey, you three _are_ the best things to come from me and your dad. But we sure didn't decide to have you, any of you. You just happened!"

I gave her a hard look for that comment, figuring a man in an M.D./Ph.D.-Public Health program and a woman with a master's degree in theater history should really have had a clue about what their extracurricular activities would lead to. But it's true that Emmett was conceived and even born out of wedlock. Esme always assures him that this was just a result of her feminist beliefs against marriage at the time, but I'm not convinced that's the whole story.

I don't doubt though that my mom and dad were truly and wholly in love; the photos of their early years are proof enough even without the copious love letters and mementos they both have squirreled away in more places than they can keep track of. As soon as I was reading books from their library shelves, I had to grow immune to the shock of finding pages of bad love poetry (written by my father), or even worse, bad nude sketches (made by my mother, of my father I presume since they were in his books but you really couldn't tell by the subject's facial features) used as impromptu bookmarks.

Even better, my parents are _still_ truly and wholly in love, and I am beginning to understand from observation of the lives of my peers how rare and valuable this state of affairs may be. Indeed, apart from Emmett's episode of unsanctioned hell-raising, our entire family does a pretty thorough representation of wholesome American happiness, with beautiful, privileged people leading beautiful, privileged lives and—this is the shocker—actually being satisfied with the lives they lead. At least the rest of them are.

Emmett, for his part, has been ecstatic with Forks ever since he met his girlfriend Rosalie. And since that happened the first time he hit the pool at the golf course the day after we arrived, he's been happy as the proverbial clam our whole time here.

My little sister Alice, too, has adjusted to the exile much better than I. Though not twins, we are in the same grade at school. This is because she was only born 11 months after me and, when it was time for kindergarten, my parents used my summer birthday and male gender as an excuse to hold me back a year. That decision would have been laughable, seeing as I was already reading my mother's novels and begging my dad to write out math problems for me to solve, but both my mom and Alice hated to see me go on without them, and my Dad figured it wouldn't hurt me any to wait a year. As for me, I was just happy to have another year of unfettered access to the piano and the Nintendo, the joys of both of which I'd discovered the year I turned four.

Initially distraught over leaving behind her friends and the theater program she was so active in, my sister quickly learned to love Forks for the lack of competition for leading roles and the existence of Jasper, Rosalie's brother. The path to true love was a little bumpier for the two of them, seeing as Jasper was clueless at the start and also _is_ a twin to Rosalie, meaning he's got a good two years on Alice. This is true despite the fact that he's only a year ahead of us in school, same as Emmett and Rosalie. Emmet had to repeat the 10th grade when we moved to Forks due to failing most of his classes the previous year in Chicago, and Rosalie and Jasper were together held back one year in elementary school due to being moved around the country so much by their desperate, alcoholic mother. If Emmett hadn't been so enthralled by Rosalie, and Rosalie hadn't put in so many good words for her brother (who may be the only person on earth she truly loves besides my own brother and herself), he wouldn't have stood a chance against Emmett, who tends to be bossy when it comes to Alice's well-being.

Even I was skeptical at first that Jasper could be good enough for my sister, especially after meeting Rosalie who I am not nor ever have been on friendly terms with, but time spent in his company changed my opinion on the matter. It also made him my closest friend, which causes a little awkwardness at times. But overall the friendship is worth it, as is Alice's happiness, and I'm glad the two of them have found each other so soon. If maybe I'm a little jealous at times too, well—that's to be expected, right?

As for me, at least I'm not miserable like I was when we first moved here. I still miss the culture of a bigger city, though now that I have a driver's license and my own car, I solve that with near-weekly road trips to Port Angeles and, much preferably, Seattle. I've also driven down the coast to San Francisco twice with Jazz and Emmett, the summers before my sophomore and junior years. Those were good times; but that's another story.

So what else is missing? Besides having to suffer through what passes as a high-school education in this academic backwater, I'm sure you can guess the source of my discontent. I mean, I'm surrounded by true love, and despite all my hard-as-nails posturing, I'd like a little taste of it myself. Or a lot. I even think, after months of alternately fantasizing in explicit detail about getting to know Bella, well, better, then second-guessing my insanely strong reactions to her as mere evidence of something f'd-up going on in my head, no doubt the result of unwilling rural living, that I have a candidate right in front of me… but I've been so uncertain about both of our possible reactions to initiating something formal that I've just sat and watched her instead. The excruciating part is seeing ever more clearly how much Bella might benefit from having me around; but that's also the part that keeps me from acting on my feelings, because what happens to her if I screw up, or screw her over? I'm not known for being the most sensitive person, and the idea of causing her pain is itself too painful to contemplate. So I don't, dancing around it in my head, and in the end leaving her more or less alone.

And that's how the object of both my ever-increasing desire and my active fantasy life remained, to any outside observer, merely the little-girl-looking lab partner I left sitting at our table as I started off to meet with the asshole (so I'm presuming—sue me) researcher who's going to spend the next few months analyzing the sex lives of the Forks High junior class. I don't know who I'm sorrier for: him, or me.


	2. Chapter 2

**So I've given up on Bella's perspective for this chapter, and it's all Edward again – if those of you reading are anything like me, there won't be many complaints! (Bella's voice coming soon, I think.)**

**And because I AM me, here is today's commentary on life, as processed through the spectacular psychological prism of Twilight fanfiction: holding on to what we think we "should" do, despite messages from reality and our own subconscious that there are reasons not to do it, can be a terribly destructive act of violence against our own selves, and the loving power of the universe in us and in others. It's like suicide in miniature: insisting on doing this ONE THING that we feel so powerfully compelled to do while ignoring all the other less-powerful-alone-but-look-at-them-together reasons not to do it. **

**[And by the way, even in middle-age I still frequently need the reassurance and reminder of reviewing all the reasons not to cast myself into oblivion. Of course, having kids usually short-cuts the list into One:Kid and Two:Kid, but sometimes, when I'm feeling like a particularly bad mother, for example, I have to go more general. Which means, even though I ****_feel_**** completely alone and despondent and as if goodness and purpose have evaporated from the world, I remind myself at top volume that:**

**1. "I have felt despondent before, and it (the suffering) has ended." [Of course, it's started again too, but this is not the time to focus on that fact.] With time and practice, you can even remember instances of joy, but at the beginning, it's more of an intellectual exercise, and probably a pretty unconvincing one. Keep practicing.**

**2. "At some time and some place in the future, there will be someone I can love in a way that doesn't hurt." No, you can't be guaranteed that you will be loved back, especially the way you ****_want_**** to be, and no, I'm not talking about romantic love alone. Some of us get magic in our search for life partners, and some of us don't. But I can guarantee that someone will need you in a way that you can fulfill, and feel better for doing so. (When you're feeling drained by obligations to other people, this can be difficult to tell yourself without panicking. The key is to remind yourself that there is someone who needs you AS YOU ARE, not as you/your mother/your partner/your boss/your kids/your friends think you should be.) **

**3. "It's okay to just hang on." The guilt to be struggling just to get up in the morning when others around you are going full-power on their achievement of all sorts of culturally-valued goals (power, money, beautiful children, money, beautiful homes, money, beautiful bodies, money) can be overwhelming. Put on your blinders, do NOT turn on the t.v. (unless it's one of your comforts), and just survive. If you need to eat the chocolate, eat the chocolate. Manage this crisis without judging yourself for needing the self-nurturance (and yes, I realize how much better it would be if the nurturing could someday come from someone else, and I wish that for you too), and you'll be in a better position afterwards to make the most of your recovery period, or the extra-happy counterbalancing if your physiology gives that to you. (I tend to go as happy as I go sad, which makes balance tricky but can definitely be made to work in your favor if you're smart and NON-JUDGMENTAL OF YOURSELF about it.)]**

**Holy Moses, was all that just a bracketed aside? Yes, yes it was. Welcome to my brain—it wanders. And yes, I could go back and edit it all out, but I don't want to, because I think the "how" of what we think and do is at least as interesting as the "what," transcended only maybe by the "why."**

**I did want to work in a book recommendation, though, for all of you high-feelers out there. (If you put your arms in front of your face to hide from both compliments and blame, you're a "high-feeler" in my imaginary book, written by me, and let me just tell you right now that one of the reasons everyone else seems to manage life so much better than you do is because they're not FEELING it the same way. That's right, "misery" for some is, on a scale of absolute emotion [oooo, we should decide what the measurement units should be, instead of degrees or inches or Kelvins… Plaths?], equivalent to "mild disappointment" for you. Such folk can't even begin to conceive of your "sadness" because their emotion-sensing-capacity doesn't go that far, let alone your "suicidal despair." Shocking, isn't it? Now go start forgiving yourself for all your missteps made out of desperation and emotional overwhelm-ment. You did the best you could, and if other people had your brain with the oversized amygdala, they'd be acting crazy too.) **

**So here's the book: Albert Ellis's ****Guide to Rational Living****. It is pure brilliance, despite having been written by a man touting "rationality" as a life goal. We'll forgive him his emphasis on rational thought because his philosophy—distilled by Ellis himself into the saying, "Don't should on yourself,"—allows us to embrace our emotionality without guilt and shame. **

**It's not a license for bad behavior on purpose, but who of us want that? No, it's a guide to escape from the shame pit where hope and possibility shrivel up and die and where a lot of us stay trapped because none of us can be perfect, and most definitely because high-feeling people get the message in this culture (maybe from the moment of birth if you consider common birth practices) that we are fundamentally ****_wrong. _****We're not wrong, we're just mis-fit into this culture's value system! Read it, see if you agree, and feel free to tell me about it. I'll be brave enough to check my messages one of these days!**

**Blessings on you, and on the marvelous MollyT for helping me apply the last paragraph to myself! **

**xo liza**

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight in the story below belong to Ms. Meyer, and all the love to God, however you understand it/Him/Her/Them. I'm just the wordy, very imperfect and extremely needy messenger-don't mind me!**

**XXXXXXXXXX**

I knew even without turning to look at Bella as I left my seat that she was as disappointed as I was not to have been partnered with each other. I wondered if maybe her father—he was the police chief of Forks, so obviously would prefer his own child set a law-abiding and well-behaved example—had been unwilling to give consent for his daughter's participation in a research project having to do with, however academically, underage sex. Or maybe her flighty mother who still (this had been one of my weekly questions back in October) had joint custody of Isabella had lost the form instead of mailing it back.

I didn't think it likely that Isabella herself had opted out of the Self-Study program, because she was now going to spend the rest of the semester with a permanent blush painted on her beautiful face, having to listen to Mr. Banner analyze the teenage sex drive—not to mention somehow managing to give a class presentation herself on an STD. I didn't yet know what I could do to smooth the way for her regarding the presentation requirement, but I knew I would have to do something. She was just too sweet and too vulnerable to be subjected to that degree of high school agony.

Besides, there was precedent in our relationship, business-like as I'd attempted to keep it, for my interference in matters of distress to Miss Swan. For example, back in November, Isabella came in to class one day looking distinctly more miserable than usual. Luckily, it was a lab day, so in between our microscopic examination of amoebas, I was able to drag out of her the source of her obvious distress.

"So, you look kind of down today, Bella. Is something the matter?" I had asked nonchalantly, careful not to look at her while I spoke, my eye to the microscope but all my attention trained on her.

I could tell from the moment of silence before her response, and a shift in the electric current that always ran between us, that I had caught her off guard, and scared her a little (this wasn't hard) with the directness of my question.

As I expected, she deflected, saying—once she had caught her breath from her surprise and dismay at being called out by me on something—in her breathy, hesitant way, "Um, no, not really, Edward." There was a pause before she hastened to add, terrified of ever seeming rude or ungrateful, especially to me, "But thank you for asking," in sweetly genuine tones of gratitude.

I had laughed under my breath, and turned then to watch her as I pushed the microscope over to rest in front of her in order to give her something to look at instead of me. She took the out I offered and immediately peered down, madly adjusting the magnification level though I knew it had been perfectly set when I passed it on to her. Staring at her, daring her to challenge me, I responded firmly, "Tell me the truth, Isabella."

It's funny how I instinctually use her full name when I'm pushing her on something, or trying to bend her will to my own, usually for her own good, and sometimes for my own satisfaction. Most often, both. Anyway, it didn't take long for my sternness to have an effect that day. Almost immediately after, she was leaning away from the microscope and darting the back of her hand up to wipe away at the tears spilling out of her eyes.

I sighed, not having meant to push her quite that far, and made a quick survey of the room as I debated putting an arm around her shoulders. The rest of the class was reasonably occupied by the assignment, given that it was still somewhat early in the lab portion of class, but a sixth sense told me that if I touched her that particular way right then, Bella would start sobbing and draw immediate, very unwanted attention to herself.

So I tried something a little more subtle, though in some ways more intimate: I reached out and laid a gentle hand on the top of her thigh closest to me, squeezing just a bit.

She looked up at me right away, wide-eyed and startled for the moment out of her tears. Leaving my hand where it was, and staring deep into her beautiful brown eyes, I tried again. "Just close your eyes and tell me why you're so upset."

She obeyed immediately, clenching her eyes shut as her breathing sped up and she quickly got out in a hushed voice, "Swimming starts today."

This seemed so anti-climactic to me, I almost laughed again. Luckily, I held it in. Schooling my face into a calm mask of nonjudgmentalness, I looked for clarification. "And you're upset about that why?"

Her eyes opened at that, surprise evident. I could almost hear her incredulity that the reason for her upset over the swimming unit in gym class was not perfectly obvious to me already. I thought hard for a moment, considering whether I _had_ missed something obvious. Nope, I concluded, not obvious. So I filled in the gathering silence as she sat still and blinked at me with, "I know you don't like gym."

That was an understatement. More than once I'd coached her out of a panic attack during our lab together as the dreaded last hour of her school day, taken up by the hated gym class, approached. Unfortunately, ri_ght_ after I said it, I knew it was also a misstep.

Now, you'd think since we were already on the subject of a specific example of how gym was the bane of her existence, that it wouldn't be additionally upsetting to mention her dislike (not really a strong enough word) of the class in general. But then, you haven't met my Isabella. No, the reminder of how she dreaded that class on a daily, even minute-by-minute basis, pushed her back over the brink of tears.

As the first two spilled down her cheeks, I tightened my grip on her thigh and leaned in towards her. "Isabella," I said demandingly, "you need to tell me _right now_ what it is _exactly_ about gym class today that has you so freaked out."

She had stared at me for a moment after that, tears still falling, biting her lip like mad, until finally she decided like she always did eventually, either that she could trust me, or that she couldn't outlast me in the battle of wills I would force on her if she didn't answer my question. I always hoped it was the former, but knew it was at least partly the latter as well. Regardless, I got the answer I needed. Or at least the beginning of it.

Hanging her head, my girl finally said so softly that I strained to hear it, "I'm scared."

And she was. She was terrified. I could feel her pulse pounding and could see the shallowness of her respiration as she struggled to get the oxygen she needed from the anxious little panting breaths she was reduced to, and she hadn't even set foot in the locker room yet. One hand replaced the other on her thigh, as the first went up to tuck some hair behind her ear while I leaned further in and said to her, "I know you're scared, Isabella. That's why I'm going to do something about it."

She looked at me again, shocked once more, but this time with the unmistakable addition of hope in her eyes. I continued, "But first, I need to have a better understanding of what exactly you're scared of, so I can help you."

She nodded slightly at this, but didn't elaborate. I cued her, "Are you scared of the water?"

She tilted her head at my question, considering it, while staring vacantly at the lab instructions on the front board. "Not exactly," was how she finally responded, to my exasperation.

Mr. Banner was slowly making the rounds, and we had only five, ten minutes at the most before he got to us, and not much more time after that before lab ended. Knowing I would need a little time to effect whatever solution I came up with, I was getting frustrated, and it was in danger of showing.

However, I also knew precisely how unhelpful any show of frustration on my part would be towards my goal of getting Bella to talk openly with me, so I valiantly bit it back and instead responded, as matter-of-factly as I could manage, "Explain."

My patience paid off. Her shoulders relaxed; her expression no longer looked as if she were on the verge of more tears; her breathing was deeper and calmer. Turning to look at my chest, (this is the equivalent of direct eye contact as far as Isabella is concerned), she said, "Well, I'm afraid of what's in the water; and dark swimming pools definitely creep me out. Especially the deep end."

This was along the lines of what I'd been expecting, and I had a solution already in mind. I wanted just one more piece of information. "What's in the water that you're afraid of?"

Bella blushed a little at this question, and gave up on the pseudo-eye contact. Looking at the floor some distance behind my feet, she bashfully whispered, "Sharks."

It was a damn good thing I'd had so much practice censoring my reactions around her by this point in the relationship, because of course my first instinct – anybody's first instinct – was to laugh. Even if we were bussing out to First Beach to swim in the ocean for gym class, sharks were not a rational concern for swimmers in the area. Rip tides and underwater rocks, sure, but sharks? Not likely. And in the Forks High over-chlorinated not-quite-Olympic-sized pool? Laughable, of course.

Except that Isabella wasn't laughing. Instead, her face radiated a very real fear behind her hesitant admission, as well as a rather intoxicating level of trust in me to be able to do something about this fear of hers. And finally, there was a tentative bloom of hope detectable, breathtaking for its newness and delicacy, that this overwhelming fear of sharks in the swimming pool might be one burden I could help her lay down.

First, however, I had to attend to the fact that she had obeyed me, and trusted me with private, personal information that she'd been hesitant—with good reason, I saw now—to share. Keeping one eye on Mr. Banner, who was mercifully distracted by the incompetence at the lab table before ours, I quickly brought her head into my chest with one hand, holding it there for a few moments of a half-embrace while I spoke quietly in her ear, "Thank you for telling me the truth."

I felt her self-restraint giving way and her body melting into mine, and knew—as much as I hated the knowledge—that I had to pull away quickly before she completely melted down in my arms and just as completely gave us away. Already I'd caught Angela glancing our way a couple of times, and though she was only worried about Bella's well-being, it wouldn't be long before the gossiping types were instinctually alerted to PDA in the back of the classroom. Never mind that it was the most paternal, non-sexual (at least on Bella's end) PDA ever to grace Forks High; given my social status, and her lack of it, tongues would happily wag, and most concerningly, mean girls doubly offended by my lack of interest in them and my inexplicable—to them—interest in Bella would descend on her in droves... or at least in numbers large enough to make her dread of swim class seem absolutely minor in comparison.

So, hating it, or maybe hating myself for not being man enough to just come out and claim her already then deal with the consequences, or maybe both, I held the back of her head up with my hand as I slowly leaned away, until I was sitting up straight again, my weight solidly back on my own lab stool.

Then, keeping my eyes trained on her while I let my hand drift from her hair, to gently down her back, to reluctantly returned to my own lap, while my other hand moved even more reluctantly up from _her_ lap to the edge of the table, I saw her eyes flicker and her cheeks flame as she registered my withdrawal from her personal space.

Moving in with words to try to keep the shame that always chased her at bay, I quickly said, "Now, here's my solution."

She must have been every bit as worried about the upcoming swim class as she seemed, because her interest in hearing my alternative was great enough that the unwarranted shame that followed her scent like the sharks she was so afraid of didn't get the chance to swallow her whole. Instead, she looked up at me expectantly, and said hopefully, "Okay?"

I smiled at her willingness to agree with me before even hearing what I had to say. She smiled back. I said, "My brother is supposed to be the lifeguard for your class today, but I'm certified too and doing better in Spanish than he is. It shouldn't be too hard for me to convince Emmett and Mrs. Goff to let me go instead of him, and once I show up at the pool, Coach Clapp won't have time to do anything about it."

I didn't see the instant relief on her face that I had anticipated at the idea of me being personally present to watch over her safety in the water. If anything, she looked horrified, and that expression was gaining strength. Not understanding this reaction, I continued, "Of course, I'll have to arrange it so I get to stay on as lifeguard for the rest of the unit, but I don't think that should be a problem. Em owes me, and although Coach Clapp doesn't like me very much, Senora Goff does."

I trailed off here, perplexed and a little horrified myself, because Isabella's reaction to what I thought was a brilliant solution was seeming terror worse than the idea of great white sharks chasing her down the swimming lanes. She started shaking even more than before, and the earlier stream of tears became a deluge. Obviously having difficulty finding her voice, she finally managed to choke out, "Please, Edward, don't… don't go to any trouble."

I manfully repressed a snort at her phrasing, given that it was obvious from her body language that she'd rather die a thousand deaths than have me lifeguard for her class today, and yet all she could say about it was in reference to my own, as imagined by her, inconvenience. My hurt feelings came out a little in my terse response, "It's not any trouble, Isabella, but it's obvious you don't want me there, so don't worry about it."

I could have kicked my selfish-ass self the next instant as I saw the guilt and shame take her. Eyes wide with dismay at her failure to cover her reaction, she started in, "Oh, Edward, that's not it at all; I'm so sorry –"

Mr. Banner was finishing up with the group before us; I had to think fast. I still was missing something important about her fear of swim class, and it had something to do with me. Cutting off her needless apology, I said, less gruffly this time, "Don't apologize, Isabella. It's obviously not the right solution, and that's okay. We'll figure something else out together." She took a deep breath and bit her lip hard, but nodded and was able to stop crying for the moment.

Then, as I saw out of the corner of my eye Mr. Banner crossing the aisle towards us from behind her, I whispered, "Follow my lead." Immediately I raised my head and said, "Mr. Banner, Bella's not feeling well."

Raising his eyebrows in mild surprise, Mr. Banner stopped in front of our table and took in both my tense posture and Bella's tear-stained face, turned briefly in his direction before falling as she hung her head in embarrassment. "Is this true, Bella?" Mr. Banner asked, rather gently—making me like him more.

Not speaking, not able to speak, she nodded her head.

I stepped in, sliding our completed lab assignment across the table in his direction and starting to stand as I said, "I think I should get her to the nurse's office before she passes out, or gets sick in here." Bella was by then so pale and trembly, that it wasn't even a lie any more – she needed out of the situation, and she needed it right away, and luckily Mr. Banner wasn't going to give me any difficulty about it.

Instead, he just nodded and turned to walk back up to his desk at the front of the room, filling out a hall pass as I gathered up my books and hers. Then, slinging her backpack over my shoulder and carrying my books under one arm, I reached for her elbow and pulled her to standing, then nudged her in the direction of the door.

We'd gained the class's attention at this point, so I dropped her elbow quickly, and simply propelled her forward by my movement behind. Her head hung low and her arms were wrapped around her body, and I had a feeling we looked like a concerned parent marching his misbehaving child out of the room. I even smiled at that thought, pleased by it somehow.

I happened to notice that Mike was _not_ pleased by my proximity to her as we approached his table. I had long suspected his attraction to Isabella, covered up in a predictably juvenile way by his tormenting of her whenever possible. I'd even had the opportunity of connecting my fist with his jaw once already in response to this behavior, although I couched it in general terms of disgust for his boorish behavior and not as the defense of my girl's honor and person that we both knew it to be. Allowing myself the additional satisfaction of a little gloating, I grinned at him as we passed by.

Once I had taken the hall pass from Mr. Banner and opened the classroom door for Isabella, who had been patiently standing in front of it waiting for me, and we were safely in the hallway with the door closed behind us, I immediately grabbed for her hand. Weaving our fingers together, I pulled her along as her tears began to flow. I didn't even bother trying to calm her this time, knowing that she needed to cry out some of what was inside, and that it was finally safe for her to do so.

By the time we got to the nurse's office, her quiet sobs had dissipated, and her shoulders had stopped heaving, but she was a miserable, tear-stained mess. Taking charge of the situation from the moment we entered, I said, "Nurse Pearson, Bella is in bad shape today. She's a patient of my dad's, and I think I should get her in to see him as soon as possible. Could you please excuse us from sixth period, and maybe call the Clinic to let them know we're on our way?"

The nurse was speechless for a moment, as I'm sure she wasn't used to encountering such direct requests for action from her underage patients. However, as it usually does, confident self-assurance won its way, and, not seeing a good reason to argue with my logical plan, nor having either the evidence to counteract my claims or the strong will to gather it, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "I guess that would be all right."

Then, to Isabella, she said in a concerned tone, "Are you comfortable with that, honey? Are you sure you wouldn't just rather lie down here for a few minutes in my office? You might just be a little over-tired; you teenagers are so reckless with your sleeping habits these days."

I knew a moment's panic that Isabella would allow herself to be talked into this opposite-of-helpful alternative, but luckily, instead of answering herself she turned to look up at me, begging me with her eyes to answer for her. "Good girl," I thought, and what I said aloud was, "I think it goes beyond exhaustion. I _know_ my dad has concerns and will want to see her, and she won't be missing anything more than gym."

This was the final argument the nurse needed to give in; primed of course as someone in her position must be for all the sneaky ways reluctant students try to cut class, she wasn't looking for someone to be desperate to miss gym. With my implied assurance that Isabella wasn't simply malingering to get out of a test she hadn't studied for, she gave up her counterattack and said, "All right, then, Edward. Just let me call Isabella's father—"

Oops, there was the catch I was bracing for. "Here, I've got my cell phone on me. Let Bella call her Dad and explain so he doesn't panic; he's a little overprotective you know. Maybe you could call the Clinic for us while you're waiting?" Bella was watching the exchange like a tennis match, and looked surprised when I got a curt nod from the nurse. I then handed Bella my cell phone as the nurse turned to look up the Clinic's number.

Bella automatically took the phone, but then just stared up at me in fear. I waited until Nurse Pearson was dialing before I leaned down and said, "Just tell him you don't feel well, and Edward Cullen has offered to drive you to his dad's office. Tell him we'll stop by the station on the way home to let him know what happens."

She nodded, relieved to have me tell her what to say, and tentatively picked out the number for her father on the phone. Biting her lip while it was ringing, I watched her with growing tenderness as she nervously interacted with the man who was supposed to be protecting her. I tried not to get pissed at him, figuring that wouldn't help me win him over later.

"Um, Dad? It's me, Bella," she opened.

I heard his gruff voice, but couldn't make out the words.

"No, everything's okay. I mean, well, I'm not feeling good, and Edward's going to take me to the doctor. I mean to his dad. I mean, you know, his dad is Dr. Cullen." She was blushing.

I caught more of what he said the second time around, especially the somewhat accusatory phrase "What's wrong with you?"

I winced, and motioned to Isabella, who was starting to cry, to give me the phone.

"Um, Dad? I think—" she started off, but I interrupted her by reaching up and pulling the phone away from her ear.

"Hello, Chief Swan?" I said, all business.

"Who wants to know?" I heard back, his voice irritated.

"This is Edward Cullen, Sir. I have biology class with your daughter fifth period, and she is really not looking well. I don't know the details, but it's very clear that she needs not to be here right now, and a little intervention from someone smart enough to figure out what's going on and fix it." I was trying to be vague, but convincing enough to get him to go along with my plan.

I was also lying, just a little, about not knowing any details. It so happened that I accidentally, though admittedly not corrected by me once I deduced the topic was Bella, overheard towards the beginning of the school year some of a conversation between my dad and mom. My dad had been relaying his concern, which must have been significant for him to bring it up with my mother, for the police chief's daughter, new to Forks High. Apparently he had just received and read through her medical history that day.

"Oh, Carlisle," my mother had said, "the poor girl. Alice says she seems afraid of her own shadow. Is it as bad as all that?"

My dad had grunted noncommittally, not breaking patient-doctor confidentiality very easily even with his own, very discreet, wife. But, a little out of character for him, a few moments later he sighed and went on to say, "Well, it isn't good. I hope he [meaning Chief Swan, of course] knows how to be supportive."

"Can we help?" I remember my Mom asking.

"I don't see how," Carlisle responded, with resignation. "Maybe the change will do her good."

The change _had_ done her good, and though I hadn't yet figured out the specifics of what was in that medical record, I could now make some educated guesses. And as I remembered those guesses, I also had an "Aha" moment in relation to Isabella's distress over swim class. In hindsight, it _was_ obvious, and I mentally kicked myself for not realizing faster that her fear of sharks was a red herring in a situation dominated by her much greater fear of her own body.

I didn't have any time to congratulate myself for this insight, however, because Chief Swan started attacking me on the phone. At first, it wasn't so much what he said, but how he said it. After a brief pause following my summary of the situation, he replied in a glacial tone, "And how do you come to be available to drive my daughter to the doctor?"

Okay, it was what he said too. But I refused to be cowed, or to apologize for my interest in Bella. "I have a car, and flexibility with my attendance in sixth hour, Sir," I replied matter-of-factly.

I didn't stop there, however, but went ahead and acknowledged the fact that it was a little out of the ordinary for a high school student to be facilitating medical care for one of his peers. "And more importantly, I care about your daughter, and have some insight from watching her in a few classes [besides biology, we are also in AP History and AP English together, not to mention pre-calc-Isabella's second-least-favorite class] that makes me both unusually willing to involve myself in her personal life, and unusually invested in the results of that involvement. I'm sorry if that bothers you, but I can't apologize for stepping in here; I care too much about your daughter for that."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella go a shade of red I hadn't seen on her before and start to cry harder. Without looking at her directly, I reached out and wrapped my arm around her waist, dragging her in to me, the back of her body flush against the front of mine, and held her there. After a couple seconds of shocked stillness during which I didn't relax my hold one bit, she turned in to me and buried her head in my chest, crying and desperately holding on to my shirt. I just rubbed her back with my free hand, and kept my focus on her father. He was still not happy with me.

"If you're so goddamned concerned about my daughter, tell me why this is the first time you're talking to me."

That brought me down hard. He was right; I'd been irresponsible in seeing problems with her and not acting on them, at least not in ways likely to lead to long-term change. He was calling me out on my hypocrisy to claim care for a person that I had, up to this point, markedly and purposefully neglected many times for my own comfort and convenience.

Taking a deep breath, I pressed on. I may have been remiss before, but I sure wasn't walking away from her need now. "I can see why it is hard for you to believe that I care about Isabella, Sir, when I haven't made myself known to you before now, and I won't insult you or her by apologizing for my actions so far, as if I wish I hadn't done them. What I have done, or haven't done, I've done or left alone for reasons. Maybe not always the best ones, but definitely never from a lack of affection or respect for your daughter."

Sadly, I was beginning to realize that was a lie; I had struggled so hard against the natural pull I felt towards Isabella, I had overcompensated and made her pay for it. But I sure wasn't going to acknowledge that to her father right now.

"Is that so?" the Chief spat at me. Shit, he wasn't buying it either. "Then tell me why it is that I already know so much about _you_. Tell me how it happens that every time I ask my daughter how her day at school was, she manages to work in a story about you. Tell me how you could miss the fact that she sees you as some sort of God-like hero, and would lie down and die for you at the slightest opportunity."

I deserved this, and more. Stunned and psychologically wounded, I forced myself to gather my wits and concoct a reply. There would be time for self-recrimination later, I told myself. Right then, there was a sobbing girl in my arms to take care of.

"Sir, I hear you. I admit there were times I didn't think my actions all the way through regarding your daughter. But I'm thinking now, and what I think is that she's emotionally overwhelmed and physically compromised, and therefore needs to be someplace safe and nurturing and healthy as soon as possible. I also know that my dad is good at talking to people, and he will be able to help her identify what is making her so miserable, and what the rest of us can do to change it. You don't have to forgive or like me in order to let me do what's right here. I understand your permission to transport her today comes with no further assurances."

There. Let him try to turn that around on me, I confidently thought.

But never underestimate Chief Swan. "You really think the issue here is _my_ forgiveness of you? _My _feelings? What do you think it's going to do to her when she goes to school tomorrow and you don't acknowledge her, after caring for her today, in such a, such a, such a _personal_ manner? What conclusion do you think she comes to every time you show her a little bit of kindness, and then go back to pretending she doesn't exist?"

Then he took a deep breath, and finished his attack with a quiet intensity that frightened me, as it no doubt was meant to do. "What game are you playing with my daughter that you think it's okay to interfere like this, without the benefit of any meaningful relationship at all?"

This time, I had no reply. And Chief Swan knew it. After a few moments, he spoke again, calmer and less angry this time. "Listen, son, believe it or not I do appreciate your stepping in and defusing what I take was a bad situation today. That girl's been going on about swim class since she first heard about it back in September. I thought that just pushing her to face it would help her see it isn't the big deal she's making it out to be."

As if the voice was coming from somebody else, I heard myself saying quietly, "Sometimes when we force people to do the impossible, miracles happen. And sometimes they fail like they knew they would and get even more f'd up."

Now it was his turn to be on the defensive, although surprisingly I took no satisfaction in that at all. Sighing, he agreed with me. "You're right, son. I gambled; I pushed her; it would appear I was wrong."

There was a longer pause before I figured out what to say next.

"Please, just let me take her to my dad. Whether I deserve it or not, she trusts me. And whether I've acted like it all the time or not, I care about her, and want to see her safe, and well, and happy. I promise I will pay more attention to her feelings in the future, and I won't treat her tomorrow like she's someone I don't know."

Taking a deep breath and hoping for the best, I waited for his response. Meanwhile, I kept stroking Bella's hair and down her back. She was still now, quietly waiting for what would happen next, trusting me. Even after all the shit I'd had to eat from her father, deservedly so I'll admit, the feeling of her trust in me, her total, complete, really-pretty-blind and definitely-undeserved trust in me was…incredible, I guess. Beyond words.

To my surprise, Chief Swan's reply wasn't long in coming. "All right, Edward; go ahead."

I blinked, then registered what he'd said. "Thank you, Sir. I won't fuck it up."

Chief Swan just grunted. Then after a brief moment, he said in a warmer tone, "Give your father my best, and tell him I'll be in touch to thank him myself, and hear what he thinks about Bella."

"Will do, Sir. Thanks again," I couldn't help adding, wincing as I said it at how desperately I wanted the man's approval, despite my earlier disdain for how he interacted with his daughter.

"Good-bye, Edward," the Chief said before hanging up. It wasn't exactly warm, but at least it was civil. I felt cheered by the improvement.

I passed this cheer along to Isabella, who was still hiding her face in my shirt, with a quick kiss on her cheek. Hugging her to me at her waist, I stored my phone back in my jeans pocket while I looked up to check on Nurse Pearson's progress. She was just getting off the phone herself, saying "Thank you," before hanging up the receiver.

"Bella has a 2:45 appointment; there was a cancellation. You'll have to hurry," she added the obvious. She didn't need to tell me twice.

With a quick smile and word of thanks, after verifying she would manage the paperwork to excuse our absences sixth period, I shepherded my girl—trembling again, now that she had to separate from me, which she did most slowly and reluctantly, though of course I kept my arm firmly circled around her waist—out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, dear readers. Sorry to be so long in updating—this September has seen multiple crises in my immediate circle, making life unusually challenging and writing time unusually rare. Thank you for your patience.**

**Writing this chapter was like wading waist-deep through syrup—the cheap, fake-maple-syrup kind I let my kids eat on toaster waffles, to their enormous delight and our dentist's profit. You'd think, or at least I thought, it would be easier, the Bella point of view. But no, it's very much harder, because it hurts. Which is probably why I usually leave it out of my own writing, when I'm writing just for myself. I already know—or I think I do—what her perspective is, where she comes from emotionally, why she hurts, because I know all those things about me (or I think I do). And don't care to re-visit them, thank you very much!**

**But I realized it wasn't fair to assume that the people reading this would automatically know those things about Bella too. I'm sure some of you do; probably most of the people willing to read this (all two of you? J ) know exactly why Bella is the way she is and what—in general terms—her life has been like BE (before Edward). But there may be some few who read this not from a place of self-identification, but of curiosity, and open-mindedness. So to them, and their willingness to consider perspectives and experiences not their own, I owe an explanation—sticky as it may be to produce it—of our Bella, and to some extent, ourselves.**

**As for those of us relational high-feelers who have struggled through life like this Bella, more or less, it is valuable to flesh out her perspective, to put words to her suffering and fear, and then to consciously acknowledge our identification with her and her particular wounds as we read the stories that calm and heal and comfort us, even temporarily. Why? Because that is how the grieving process begins—acknowledging the loss you have suffered. It's not the start of suffering, of course; that happens on its own according to our psyche's own stubborn logic. Grieving is the healing process of _recovering_ from the suffering, and moving on…not without the pain, but in spite of it. And you can't start to grieve something you haven't acknowledged exists.**

**So, when you're comforting yourself with fanfiction, or music, or books, or movies, tell yourself honestly why what you're doing helps; acknowledge, even for just a moment, what the hurt is you're tending to. This seemingly simple act is profound in its effect, because by allowing your conscious self to see it, to own it, you also invest your consciousness in the idea of fixing it or healing it in some way, rather than just pretending the hurt isn't there. It's easy to fall into pretending that, because many hurts that linger are ones that "shouldn't" be there at all, according to the violence of conventional wisdom and our own ruthless intellects. What lucky one of us hasn't heard, "You're being too sensitive! Stop blowing things out of proportion! Move on! Get over it!" And what luckier one of us hasn't said all that to ourselves, with more exasperation and anger with ourselves than others could ever produce?**

**This also seems like the time to address the bogeyman, or boggart, if you prefer, of self-pity. GRIEVING IS NOT SELF-PITY! I will defend that proposition/statement/truth to my dying day! (Especially if we're talking about other people's grieving; it's easier to defend others than ourselves, at least for those of us who struggle with shame.) We live in a culture (I can't comment on other cultures, except that plenty of those I've read about seem likely to have the same issue, and any culture that is gentle enough to be more compassionate in its understanding of loss and grief might not last long on this violent planet) that is positively miserly about doling out emotional comfort. Comfort food; conspicuous consumption; aggressively acting out our insecurities by "proving" our worth on sport fields or bank statements, or in boardrooms or political office…these are all acceptable [Though comfort food becomes a liability when it leads to obesity, as those non-thin-people among us (like me) know. I apologize right now for always making my Bellas tiny: that absolutely comes from my own body shame, and my unwillingness, yet, to write of a physical beauty outside of strict cultural norms. Being obese, or even just overweight, is emphatically not safe in this culture—and I'm not talking about heart disease risk. Because what I want most of all is safety for my Bellas, I make them little. Of course, I also like Bella being little for its own merits; most importantly, for being able to be completely surrounded—emotionally and physically—by a loving Edward. However, braver fanfics exist: try "Fourteen" by CrimsonMarie for starters. I really enjoyed it, once I got past Edward being a bully at first.] while expressing emotional vulnerability and need are not, especially if they are of an extreme or persistent or difficult-to-assuage nature, or if meeting them would interrupt the efficiency of the economic engine.**

**So we learn to pretend that "we're fine, and how are you?" And really, given the lack of capacity for attending to and nurturing others of the average person I know anyway, that's probably a wise strategy. The problem is when we don't have any safe people to be real in our pain with, or when we have to pretend to ourselves that we're fine, or, worst of all, when we stop believing that our pain is real and meaningful and instead believe that it indicates something fundamentally wrong (lazy, immoral, selfish, greedy, immature, borderline, disturbed, crazy) with ourselves/our selves.**

**Enter Edward, of course; but for real life, I recommend starting slowly to peek at the pain you're trying to evade or outlast or ignore. Try taking as a matter of faith that the pain is there for a sound, logical reason, and if you don't understand the reason, it's just because you haven't looked deep enough yet—or maybe because you're not yet ready to see it.**

**As you enter into a tentative, gentle dialogue with the pain, you might find that the reasons you believe, the story you tell yourself about how the pain came about and why it's still with you, change. The pain itself may change too, and not just in quantity but in nature. For example, as resilient as I've become (relatively-speaking) to the pain of nagging depression and fears of rejection and self-doubt, it is shocking to me how deep and severe my episodes of total despair are now. They are worse—deeper, more terrifying, more real—than ever before, because I no longer have the inherently-optimistic veil of youth covering my perception. But that is only one aspect of my experience, and the greater peace, effectiveness and well-being of the rest of my existence as a result of wrestling with my grief, in its various guises, makes this change worth bearing. Besides, who's to say the despair wouldn't be even greater if I had continued to try to will the grief away?**

**Finally, (and yes, I'm using writing this Author's Note as one more means of procrastinating dealing with Bella), I want to wager a guess—based on a recent conversation with my friend, Rebecca-the-genius—as to what may be at the root of much of your grief, at least if you're a relational high-feeler like me: the perceived loss of your own lovability. "Lovability" is the term Rebecca used to describe a person's own inner certainty that they have value, no matter what they do; together we decided that the belief that one is lovable is the most important belief that is required in order to be free of crippling self-doubt and defensiveness, and to be able to face life as it is, making of it what one will, and taking joy from what results. And the most important skill to go with this belief? The ability to love others, of course.**

**I've been struggling for years to understand what magic some parents manage with their children that leaves those kids fundamentally convinced of their own worth, even when they're not acting like particularly stupendous people. Psych-types and modern culture have called this magic currency "self-esteem," but that is just a descriptive label offering no clue as to the actual mechanics of the phenomenon. Instead it misdirects us into thinking we can increase "self-esteem" by convincing kids to hold themselves in higher "esteem" by the routes we usually esteem people—in other words, in relation to their actions, their performance. For example, my son brought home a worksheet from the school counselor last year on which she instructed the kids in his class to identify three things they did well as a means of building resiliency and self-esteem.**

**Now there's nothing wrong with recognizing what you do well, or telling kids to notice their successes, but what about those times when you don't do much right, or your children experience failure in something they thought they were good at? What about when what you do best is undervalued, or devalued, by those around you? What about that deep dark fear that sometimes comes true about what will happen when you can't do those things, those sources of esteem by self and others, anymore?**

**We're talking about something more fundamental than self-esteem when we talk about those deep, dark fears, and the nagging loneliness that never quite goes away no matter how often the person nearest to you assures you that they love you…especially when those assurances grow a little wilted and less convincing over time. We're talking about something more basic and important and transcendent than self-esteem the same way that we're talking about something much more than romantic titillation when we're talking about Bella's love for Edward, and his love for her. We're talking about our estimation of the likelihood of being loved completely for ourselves, despite ourselves, no matter what terrible things we might do. Even a parent can't quite love a child that perfectly, with no sign of strain or second-guessing. Which is why we're so glad to find out vampires can, and can keep it up for eternity!**

**Given the noted shortage of vampires, especially of the loving type, it is also probably why we humans (some of us, anyway) yearn for God, and seek assurance of our lovability by following rules, no matter how silly or outdated or wrong some of them may seem to our eyes, and by willing ourselves to believe that if we just do what we're told, the most important entity possible will love us without qualification or reserve. Excepting, of course, those rules. [And that would be why I flat-out refuse to take the Bible or any other religious text as literal truth, because the need to follow rules in order to earn unconditional love would seem to undo the unconditionality. Instead, I believe, I suppose after Rousseau but qualified by acknowledging the importance and value of the passed on wisdom and experience of those who've come before us, and who struggle with us now, that the basic rules of morality may be simply _felt_ in the soul that's been exposed to its own and others' suffering, and has been loved enough to know the healing power of that action. I will agree that without the humility of knowing one's own perceptions are limited by one's human nature; and without openness to the possibility that what one feels to be true may be wrong for others, and what one does in love may lead to harm, my position is dangerously self-referential. But I would also argue that the more commonly-held position defining morality by historical precedent is dangerously and willfully ignorant of the wisdom of empathic feeling, and spiritual intuition.]**

**So if there's something more crucial, more elemental at the root of the human psyche than the desire to be loved, simultaneously for and in spite of ourselves, I don't know what it is, unless it's the companion desire to love others. And if you're going to play Freud and say "sex," I will counter that sex drives a lot of the human being as animal, but is merely a tool for the spiritual aspect of human nature to express its desire to love, and be loved in return.**

**Of course, wanting to be loved obviously also has an animal parallel in wanting not to be abandoned by the pack and left to fend for oneself or die, but I optimistically and in opposition to well-argued sociobiology theories I'm sure like to think there's more to it than that, and I take my proof in our willingness to love even when it means being cast out of the pack. And incidentally, I better understand The Scarlet Letter every time I grow in appreciation for the redemptive quality of loving others, independent of public opinion.**

**The lovely, no the ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT thing about Rebecca-the-genius's re-naming of the magical quality that makes some people so satisfied, so at peace with themselves while others of us, lacking it, are continually chasing our own tails in the search for it, is that "lovability" tells us how to give it to children, to others, to ourselves: by loving them, of course! By loving them explicitly, and thoughtfully, and unconditionally (as much as humanly possible) in actions as well as words, and with all the reassurances and repetition necessary until they/we believe it to be true: they are lovable because we love them, point of fact, case closed.**

**Yes, it's trickier and—ugh, you knew this was coming—harder, more painful, less permanent, you name it—when we're trying to love ourselves. I'm sure I'll write sometime, when my pride is at a particularly low ebb, about how I use fantasy to accomplish this in part, and I know I've given credit for loving me into a better life to friends like Rebecca (the genius) and mentors I've been lucky enough to have, for a time. But mainly, I think the avenue to believing in our lovability, besides being willing to make ourselves vulnerable enough to pick up the bits and pieces of reassurance others can offer us while they're scrambling to do the same themselves, is to convince ourselves of our ability to love others.**

**Because intuitively and through experience, we know this: nothing is more lovable than a selfless act of love (unless it's a peacefully sleeping baby; but I digress). So look to the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi for reassurance and guidance, (substituting your deity as needed, of course), "Lord, make me an instrument of thy Peace…grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."**

**Whether you believe the last bit literally or metaphorically (as I do), there is no better recipe for peace and eventual salvation from shame and bitter grief and painful regret, though it seem insurmountably difficult in the beginning. I promise, with practice, following this logic of giving to receive becomes easier, and as the rewards are felt even as the pain of the unrequited need to be loved lingers, the pain loses some of its urgency in its unflattering juxtaposition to the joy of loving well. Or trying to, anyway.**

**Oops. I have some work to do, as this A/N is currently longer than my Bella POV. I hope you don't mind my sharing what I've learned in my own life, in the hope that it might have some utility in yours. I'd love to hear your feedback or thoughts or experiences, so please message me if you'd like to (I still am too big a coward to read reviews). Take good care, and know that you are lovable just by the fact that you want to be loved. If you don't have someone around who is able to love you as you are, that is just a twist of fate, and a failure in fit between you and your surroundings-not an evaluation of the potential beauty of your soul or your right to exist on this earth. If you are desperate, pick some small act of love, and pour your need into it. I pray it brings you comfort, and act by act, a path to peace and emotional safety. Blessings to you! xoxo liza**

**Disclaimer: As always, all things Twilight belong to Ms. Meyer; all things loving to the loving power of the universe; and all things neurotic, run-on and confused to me! (Does that mean you belong to me too? ;))**

**XXXXXXXXX**

"Bella?" Mr. Banner's questioning voice registered, and I jumped in my seat. Luckily he was right in front of me, and not at all upset-seeming at my not paying attention to his attempt to return my graded exam to me. And also luckily, I was in the back of the room, and everyone else was already focused on their own tests, so no one else noticed my reaction-or made fun of it.

Unlike this morning, when I startled up off my seat as I recognized my name being called by Mr. Varner, the pre-calculus teacher. A couple people behind me laughed; I think it was Lauren and Conner. They tend to find me funny. I'm not trying to entertain them, and I sure don't mean to jump like that-it just happens.

I didn't have time to think about being embarrassed though, because Edward Cullen was walking up to me, and reaching a piece of chalk out for me to take. I realized then that Mr. Varner was telling me that it was my turn up at the front to work out a homework problem on the board. Edward was smiling down at me, in that reassuringly knowing way he has, and when he handed me the chalk his other hand reached up and quickly but firmly gripped my shoulder, just for a moment. I feel so much better when he touches me!

His hand was gone quickly though; so quickly that it was barely on my shoulder long enough for me to register it. If it didn't happen so often, I would think I imagined it. But it's become our norm now. Whenever he passes by, he reaches out and touches me somehow. A fleeting touch on the back of my arm as he walks past me on his way to his seat in English class; a hand on my back for a millisecond while I'm sitting at a lunch table and he is walking by.

And always, always this gentle squeeze of my wrist when I sit down at our lab table in biology together.

That started just my second day of classes here; the second day of the school year. I had absolutely humiliated myself the day before, in multiple ways, but the most painful in my own mind was how I had ignored Edward Cullen—THE Edward Cullen, who my old summer friend Jessica Stanley couldn't stop talking about: how handsome he is, how wealthy his family is, how much she wants to date him, how arrogant he is for not dating anybody (especially her)—when he had introduced himself in biology class. I didn't mean to ignore him! Really I didn't! I was just so scared of him it was easier to pretend I couldn't hear what he said.

But I beat myself up the rest of the day and well into the night, crying in my bed, for starting off at my new school exactly as I had been in my old school: shy, and incompetent, and lonely. I had been trying to pretend all summer that this was a new start; that I could be a different person here in Forks than I had been in Phoenix. Even Charlie was giving me pep talks, and my mom had forgiven my fear of her new husband long enough to buy me a fashionable new outfit to wear on my first day. But I could hear disappointment and resignation in her voice when she sighed and said, "Oh, Bella," after calling to check in on how my first day went.

I had tried to lie, of course, and said my first day was great, but unfortunately I'm a terrible liar and I started crying, which made me hate myself even more because if there's one person you should not cry in front of, it's my mother. Luckily the conversation hadn't lasted long; I am very glad to have the new distance between us. At least over the phone I can't see the disappointment in her eyes too. "You'll figure it out," she'd said, without much confidence, ending with, "It's only Forks. If you can't make it there, you can't make it anywhere. Tomorrow's a new day; just have some confidence, for God's sake, and you'll be fine."

I had responded as I always do with, "Thanks, Mom. I'll try." But we both knew that it was a lie. I'd be scrambling for cover like I also always do.

It took everything I had just to get past the school doors the next morning. My sort-of friend Jessica hadn't called Monday night, and her chattiness had all but dried up by sixth period of my first day, ending completely after I accidentally hit Mike Newton in the face with a volleyball. I think she might have forgiven me the bloody nose I gave him; I mean, it wasn't broken or anything, and not all swollen and bruised. But Mike had a really strange reaction, and after swearing and heading to the locker room to make the bleeding stop, he came back out before the end of class and came up to me, asking me if _I_ was okay.

I blushed all over again, and couldn't look him in the eye, so embarrassed to be reminded of what I'd just done (accidentally, of course—I couldn't aim like that if I was trying to hit someone on purpose), and so uncomfortable to be talking to a guy. So I can understand that it maybe looked like I was trying to flirt with him, or something. But I wasn't. I just said, "I am so sorry, Mike. I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

And he laughed, and said something about not wanting to make me mad in the future, and then he put his arm around me for a hug. And instead of freezing up or running away like I usually do, I was so relieved that I hadn't made a mortal enemy on my first day of school that I hugged him back, just for a second.

After that second, I got really uncomfortable, because Mike wasn't making a move to end it, and I remembered where we were, and someone started making wolf-whistling noises, and by the end I was struggling out of his hold. He finally let go of me only when Coach Clapp said, "That's enough, you two," and then ordered me up to serve. I was burning with humiliation and fear, as I could still feel Mike's eyes on me, and those of the rest of the class, and I desperately wanted to just run away.

But somehow, like watching myself in a movie, l got through the failed serve, and the last few minutes of gym class, and then managed to escape to the locker room immediately after the bell rang without encountering Michael Newton or anyone else. I saw Jess in there later, and started to go up to speak to her, to thank her for her help that day. But the unfriendly look she gave me as I approached her made me stop cold, and then simply turn and walk away alone, back to my locker. I didn't understand her reaction at first, but when Mike Newton approached me on my way to my truck and asked if I wanted to go get something to eat at the diner, I realized, with a lot of surprise, what the problem was.

Luckily, I was surprised enough that I was able to respond to Mike honestly, in as far as telling him I didn't want to go; or rather, politely saying, "No, thank you. But thanks for asking."

He looked surprised himself. "Why not?" he asked.

Then I had to lie. "Um, I'm not allowed to date." I realized how presumptuous that sounded, so I quickly added, "Or do anything with um…boys." I winced at how fast I went from sounding presumptuous to completely immature.

Mike still stood there, surprised looking, so I took advantage of his immobility and silence and fled into my truck, saying "But thank you for asking. You're very kind. And I'm so sorry about your nose. Tell me if there is anything I can do—" I cut myself off there, afraid he would think of something, and ended quickly with "See you tomorrow," before I pulled my huge iron door shut and started the engine.

He backed away a little as I reversed out of the spot, so anxious to get away I narrowly missed hitting another, much smaller car, backing out of the spot behind me. I stopped, engine roaring, waiting my turn, my cheeks on fire again and tears pooling. Then I looked to one side and saw Edward Cullen glancing over his shoulder at Mike, (who was still standing off to the side), and laughing.

Then, in horrible slow motion, I saw Edward Cullen move his head to turn and look at me, catching me staring at him. I looked away too late, and finally was able to back up and get out of that miserable place with the feeling of Edward Cullen's eyes burning into me, wondering, I imagined, who this insane girl was who would dare to ignore him and then stare at him, unasked, like she had any right to exist in this world whatsoever. I was crying before I was out of the lot, but luckily I didn't hit anyone and made it home to sob in safety.

All that night and into the next morning, I considered all sorts of possibilities to get out of school. But deep down, I knew they were just distractions from the inevitability of trying again in the morning. There was no way that Charlie was going to let me off the hook.

I had already tried to talk him into letting me do school at home. He had seemed sympathetic at first; Charlie has very kind eyes when he really listens, and I'm brave enough to be honest with him. But then he had crushed my hopes. "Bells, I feel for you honey, I really do. But if I let you hide from high school, you'll never learn how to survive in life. You can't just run away from adult responsibilities, Bella, and I'm not going to let you run away now. As long as you're under my roof, you go to school. _At_ school."

I had run off after that, to cry in my room. And that had just been the week before, so I didn't think it likely that he would have changed his mind yet. Although I had researched the homeschool laws for the state of Washington at the library over the weekend. Just in case.

Thinking about escaping to homeschool got me up and dressed and out to my truck; listening to bouncy pop music on the truck radio got me to school; a sense of surrealism and detachment got me through the first half of my day—helpfully made more surreal and detached by my exhaustion and the rainy day. But as my lunch period drew to a close, (I was spending it hiding from Jessica in the library), I started to tremble in nervousness at the idea of facing Edward Cullen again. I was so nervous about that, I hardly even made it to thinking about gym, but of course every time I did, I started crying.

So I was a shaking, bleary-eyed mess when the bell rang, indicating the necessity of leaving my sanctuary. I half-closed my eyes and started in the right direction, but when I was almost there, something in me rose up and protested, and I couldn't take another step towards that lab table. Instead, I turned on my heels and started walking quickly away.

I wasn't completely clear yet where I was heading—to the nurse's office to claim a headache, maybe; or simply out to my truck and away, to deal with the consequences later—but wherever it was, I was going there fast, head down, eyes on my moving feet. So I jumped in the air when I heard my name called, and shrieked when it was followed by a hand on my arm. Turning, I saw an amused and maybe a little confused-looking Edward Cullen looking straight into my face, a question on his. The hand belonged to him, and the voice that had summoned me did too.

Behind him was Lauren Mallory, smirking as usual. I averted my eyes from her unkind, miserable face and chanced looking at Edward again, just as he started to say something. "Didn't you hear me? You're going the wrong way."

He said it kindly, but in a way also indicating he expected an answer.

"Oh." That was it; that was my response.

Edward tipped his head to the side a bit and stared at me a moment, then tightened his grip around my arm, sliding his hand down to my wrist, and started pulling me after him. I fought it at first, planting my feet and endeavoring to stay put. But he was strong, and didn't seem to notice my resistance before he had me tripping along behind him. When we got to the door, which still-smirking Lauren was holding open for us, I balked harder, and leaned back on my heels to avoid going in. I didn't even know why at this point, because I'd already faced the person I was dreading facing the most in there, but it was reflex action, and not hard to justify to myself at all.

Edward paused in his progress, turned towards me and said, in an undertone, "Are you scared, sweetheart?"

Despite the fact that I heard Lauren snort, I was immediately transported into heaven. I'd never been there before, so I took a few moments to orient myself to how wonderful it felt. I really could hear angels singing, although that might have been the result of the increased blood flow to my ears due to my blushing. I didn't care; it sounded angelic and so I took it as a welcome sign of…something. Something good.

I'd forgotten he'd asked me a question, but when my wandering gaze fell on him, still looking intently in my direction, I remembered, and simply nodded my head.

He didn't say anything in response, but smiled, then leaned in and hugged me (with the arm not gripping my wrist; his books pressed into my back), just for a moment. I was speechless, but, moving in slow-motion due to the surprise, I managed to tentatively hug him back.

The bell rang, and I flinched in reaction to the loud noise, like always. Edward laughed at that, but I didn't mind, though I was painfully disappointed when he let go of me, except for my wrist. Then he towed me into the room, passing a stunned-looking Lauren still holding the door.

He dropped my wrist as we entered, but I followed him, like a puppy follows its mother. Mr. Banner hadn't started class yet; he was sorting himself out up front. Still, I was aware of having entered the classroom moments after the bell, instead of before, so as I turned to follow Edward down the center aisle to our lab table in back, I paused and said quietly in Mr. Banner's direction, "I'm sorry I'm late."

He looked up, a little distracted, and said in a surprised tone, "Oh! Well, that's not a problem, Bella." [My father had indicated on my school paperwork that my preferred nickname was "Bella." I didn't mind, really, but most of the time I felt much more like an "Isabella" instead—old-fashioned, reserved, and definitely not beautiful.] Then Mr. Banner focused a little more and smiled at me, kindly. I liked him.

So I smiled back, just for a moment, before turning and hurrying to my seat. Edward was standing next to it, waiting for me, a lazy grin on his face. I was afraid to get too close to him, so when I got to the other side of my lab stool I came to a halt, frozen, waiting for him to sit down so I could.

But he didn't. Instead, he pulled the stool out a little with one hand, then reached up and wrapped that arm around my waist, pulling me down. I sat with an ungraceful "thud," and looked up at him in total surprise. He was still grinning at me, laughter in his eyes, but I didn't care at all that he found me funny. Then he turned away to pull my backpack off my shoulder and set it down on the floor to my side.

I was shocked motionless, even though Mr. Banner was getting the PowerPoint presentation up and running, so with a smile and a shake of his head, which I somehow couldn't read anything bad into even though my inner critic tried, Edward unzipped my backpack and pulled out my notebook and pen, handing them to me before sitting down—a little closer to me than he had been yesterday, I noticed—and starting in on his own notes.

I was so overwhelmed by all that had happened in the past few minutes that I was just sitting there, not registering a word Mr. Banner said. Then I felt something on my arm, the arm closest to Edward. Both my hands were resting on the lab table, and Edward had his own right hand stretched out to me, lightly gripping my forearm, while he took notes with his left.

I stared at him, utterly disbelieving, until he quickly glanced up and smiled. Mouthing the words, he said, "It will be okay," then winked, before turning his head back up front. Meanwhile, his hand slid down to my wrist, and gripped it there, squeezing gently. I stared at his hand, incredulous still, but growing more comfortable by the second. Finally, I moved to open my notebook and uncap my pen, and my brain regained enough functioning for me to take notes, though I still glanced every so often at the strong, yet elegant hand around my wrist.

As the class progressed, and Edward's hand stayed in place, I felt all the stress and shame and fear of the last 24 hours falling away, almost like he was pulling it out of me with his touch. My breathing slowed down to a calm pace, the tears that had constantly been threatening receded, my shoulders relaxed, the iron grip around my heart released as his gentle hold on me continued. He didn't let go until half-way through class, when Mr. Banner handed around a lab worksheet. Then, though his hand left me in order to take the paper from Mr. Banner, he pulled his stool even closer to me and turned his body towards mine, pulling me in to a discussion of the classification questions I'm sure he could have answered perfectly on his own.

The rest of the hour flew by in the warmth of Edward Cullen's positive regard, and when the bell rang, I gathered my things and walked calmly out of the class as if gym bore no threat to me. And as long as I was in Edward's presence, it didn't. He said good-bye to me at the classroom door, touching my arm as he said, "See you tomorrow, Isabella—try not to get lost, okay?" I smiled, and he smiled back. It was glorious.

Then he turned and walked away. I realized I was just standing there, watching his retreating form, and then with a start I was back in reality—but something of the safety of the encounter remained, because I got through gym without crying, or even thinking too much. I just kept re-living the warmth of his touch and the safety of his presence, and it was like I had an invisible shield against Mike's unwanted advances and Jessica's dagger looks in my direction.

That night, as I was curled up in bed, I ecstatically reviewed every second of Edward Cullen's touch before falling asleep to dreams of being held, safe and secure, in his arms. I had the best night's sleep I'd had in years, and in the morning, I felt almost buoyant despite the predictably gloomy weather. The unusual cheerfulness lasted—to Charlie's shock and great pleasure-until I was in the truck on my way to school, when sudden terror overtook me at the thought that maybe, just maybe, Edward Cullen hadn't been being kind to me, but had simply been gathering material to torture me with later.

The thought struck me like a wrecking ball, and I just barely managed to maneuver to the side of the street, a couple of blocks from the high school, before the heaving sobs began in reaction to the terrible certainty of what I would have to face today. Having had all afternoon and evening to talk about how ridiculous I'd acted, and how needy I'd been, I was sure to be a laughing-stock this morning and a social pariah by lunchtime. I was just beginning to dry heave when I was startled by a knocking on my window. Wild-eyed I'm sure, I swung my head around to see who was there…and stared into Edward Cullen's concerned eyes.

I sat there, mouth gaping, just staring at him, until finally he started shouting something. "Open the door, Isabella!" I made out over the rainfall the second time he said it. Slowly I dropped my head to look at the engaged door lock; the old-fashioned kind with the push-and-pull stick coming out of the top of the frame. I was just staring at it, my mind a blank, when I heard his voice again. "Come on, sweetheart, I'm getting soaked out here."

That did it. Either the "sweetheart" or the guilt would have prodded me to movement; together they made me fly. I had the door unlocked and opened so quickly that I accidentally hit Edward with it—I heard a grunt from him as the door made contact with his chest, and I started panicked apologizing.

"Oh! Edward! I am so sorry! Oh no! Are you okay?" and so forth, until finally he got into the cab and shoved me over to the passenger seat (after I finally got my seatbelt undone) while pulling the offending door shut behind him.

"Shhhh, Bella, sweetheart, I'm okay. No harm, no foul, right? Calm down, sweetheart. You haven't hurt me."

By then I was starting to calm, because he did seem to be all right, and because he was tucking loose hair behind my ear and just generally being near me. After a big sigh, as my shoulders relaxed some more, Edward stopped touching me and said, "Now what's up with the early-morning crying jag?"

Blushing furiously, I looked away, down the road to school. "You'll be late," I whispered, desperate to change the subject.

"Unh-uh," he responded, "no distracting me here. Why are you so upset?"

He stared at me then, and stared some more. I looked away, and looked away some more. He didn't give in; he didn't give up; he didn't huff in exasperation or anger and storm off, telling me I'm too difficult to tolerate. He just sat there. Staring at me. Waiting.

Sooner than I would have believed, I cracked. "I was scared."

There was a pause, and somehow I knew he was smiling. I turned my head slightly to confirm his reaction, and caught sight of an enormous grin.

He saw me looking, and the grin vanished. "I'm sorry, honey," he said (to my ecstatic astonishment—sweetheart and now honey?!); "it's just that I could have guessed you were scared. That seems to be a pretty common feeling for you, am I right?"

Undone by the continuation of his kindness to me, I just nodded.

"So you see, I found it a little funny that you thought I needed to know that. But I don't think it's funny that you're scared, does that make sense?"

I nodded my head, somewhat impatiently. _Of_ _course_ I could tell he wasn't being mean to me by smiling; I can read the emotional intentions of an ant twenty feet away. The only thing behind his grin just then had been love (in a cosmic sense; I was trying hard not to delude myself by imagining there was anything special about me) and humor, with not a trace of meanness. At this point I was fully convinced Edward Cullen didn't have a mean bone in his body.

He confirmed my belief when, instead of dragging the humiliating truth out of me, he provided a general cover story himself. "I bet you don't enjoy being the new person at school, do you?" he said gently, leaning in to stroke my hair again, and my happy head under it. I might have mewed, like a highly-satisfied kitten. At least I didn't purr.

I do know I slowly shook my head, and that response seemed to satisfy him. Nodding his own head, he said, "High school can be brutal, no doubt. The trick is finding good friends and sticking with them. I know you're new here, but I'm your friend now, and you'll make more, I'm sure of it."

I looked at him, trying not to be so disrespectful and unappreciative as to convey my complete disagreement with what he just said, but obviously failing because he laughed, and, leaning his face in a little closer said, "You're just going to have to trust me on that."

Then, sadly moving back again, he checked his watch and said, "You're right though, about being late for school if we don't get moving." Turning to look at me in a considering way, he continued, "I have no problem towing _you_, but towing your truck is going to be a problem. I'm not sure my car can handle it."

I blushed wildly, and looked away from him down the road, not really seeing anything.

His knuckles brushed down my cheek, and I shrieked, jumping in my seat.

Edward chuckled. "So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to get back in my car and pull in front of you. Then you're going to follow me into the parking lot. We'll pretend there are imaginary tow lines, okay? And if that doesn't work, I'm coming back for you and leaving the truck here, which might irritate the neighbors, but is fine with me. Do you hear me?"

I couldn't look at him, but I nodded. I couldn't think, but after he left the truck with a final admonition to "Put your seatbelt back on," I did just as he said. On auto-pilot, I followed his shiny silver Volvo into the school parking lot, and when he paused in front of an open spot and stuck his arm out the window, pointing to it, I pulled in without question or hesitation. I shut the engine off and sat there a couple moments, waiting for cognitive functioning to kick in again, when there was another knocking on my window. I didn't startle like I had before; instead, I think I expected it. And sure enough, when I turned, there was Edward Cullen standing outside my door, beckoning me outside too with his hand.

Effortlessly, I grabbed my backpack off the passenger seat and opened my door, jumping down (and only stumbling slightly), then locking and closing the door. Edward laughed a little when I locked the door, but I didn't mind. I knew no one would steal the truck, but I'd grown up in Phoenix, and I'd as soon leave a car door unlocked as walk out of my house naked. That thought made me smile a little, so when I turned back to Edward he looked pleased at my change in attitude.

"See? Not so hard, right?" he asked rhetorically, before grabbing my wrist and towing me into the school building in front of us, just as he'd towed me down the hall to biology class the day before. Inside the door, he dropped my arm and turned to go to his locker in the opposite direction of mine, waving to some of his friends who were calling to him from down the hall.

I couldn't help feeling a little abandoned, but before that feeling could grow, he turned back to me and raised his eyebrows, saying, "You better get going, sweetheart. Mr. Varner is a jerk about tardies. I'll see you in five minutes." And then he stared at me, expectantly, until I turned away and started down the hall in the opposite direction. I looked over my shoulder once, half-way to my locker, and saw that his eyes were still on me and he hadn't moved, as if he were making sure I wasn't going to go right back out the door. I blushed, and he winked, and then the first bell rang and we both moved off to our lockers.

I made it through the rest of the morning in a daze, only perking up when Edward came into view. He didn't talk to me, but he smiled at me a lot, and he patted my shoulder for the first time as he walked by me on the way to his seat in English class. I was so numbed to the horror of the first day, thanks to Edward, that I braved the lunchroom again, sitting next to Angela at her invitation.

Lunch went better this time; Angela has a much nicer, if smaller, circle of friends than Jessica does. And I was rewarded for my bravery with another smile and wink from Edward, sitting across the lunchroom.

I had been trying not to search the cafeteria for him, having already had to squash romantic suggestions from Angela's friends about Edward's feelings for me based on the widely-spreading intelligence that he had held my hand on the way into school today, and not wanting to appear any more desperate than I did already. But half-way through lunch, Jessica deigned to stop by and say "Hi," using that opportunity to tell me that Edward Cullen had been looking my way the whole period so far.

I was so surprised I looked up in the direction she indicated, with a tip of her head, and sure enough—there was Edward grinning at me from his table. As I stared at him, too shocked to politely look away, he winked before turning back to conversation with his friends and siblings. Blushing, I quickly dropped my gaze to the table. Then, not knowing how to handle Jessica's increasingly aggressive attempts to pump me for information about an imagined relationship I knew didn't exist and would never, despite my deepest desires, exist between me and Edward Cullen, I fled to the bathroom and waited there until the bell rang for fifth period.

Exiting the girls' bathroom to head to biology, I was stunned to find none other than Edward Cullen leaning against the wall, apparently waiting for me. I guessed this, despite its seeming impossibility, because as I emerged he pushed off from the wall and walked up to me, grabbing my wrist and starting in down the hall and out the door towards the science building. He didn't say a word; he didn't need to. Everything he could have wanted to say and more was communicated in the secure way he held my wrist, and the way his thumb made circles against my palm, and the way he was so careful with me moving through doorways and up staircases. Never had I felt so cherished; so protected; so safe.

He seemed oblivious to the curious gazes of the students we passed, and I—though blushing, of course—could think of nothing but how wonderful it felt to be near him this way. When we got to the classroom, he let go of me in order to hold the door open and let me pass by him. I moved past our table and stopped so he could go in first, which he did, pulling my lab stool out for me as he went. Once he was seated, I sat down too, pulling my science notebook out and getting situated for taking notes before feeling his hand against my wrist again, pulling it towards him slightly, still resting on the table. There was no lab to do that day, so Edward spent the entire class period with his hand wrapped around me, and I was a new Bella Swan for real.

Sure, gym class was still beyond awful, and Jessica remained a trial, moving without warning between acting like she hated me and acting like we were best friends. But thanks to Edward, I had no problem driving myself to school the next morning, or getting through the school day until biology. I even managed to walk there on my own, well, with Angela, though I felt a stab of fear and emptiness as I entered the classroom without him. I needn't have worried, however, for as soon as he came in, just a few seconds later, he settled in his seat, got his notes out and reached out for my wrist, squeezing it for a moment before relaxing to his usual gentle hold.

So that's how Edward Cullen came to start holding my wrist at the start of biology class every day. He didn't do it once, a few weeks ago, and I felt all wrong; I even started crying. Not hard or anything; I don't think anyone noticed but him. He notices everything. He'd been texting someone or doing something with his phone when I had come in before class, and he must have been really distracted by it because he didn't even look up until I said "Hi, Edward."

He smiled then, the warm kind that makes his eyes crinkle and my stomach turn, in a happy way. He said, "Hi, Bella; be right with you," and then he went back to his phone.

I said "Okay," of course, and got out my biology notebook and tried really hard to concentrate. Mr. Banner started class and Edward put his phone away, and got his own notebook out, and it should have been a normal class. But this sad feeling kept growing inside me. Eventually, the tears came, and I fought so hard to bite them back but one rolled down my cheek, and then the other, and I didn't even begin to understand why until I felt him. Finally, his hand was on my wrist, and I was instantly comforted. It was a bonus when he leaned in and said, "Sorry, sweetheart," and left his hand there for much longer than usual. When he eventually pulled away again, I was smiling so hard my eyes hurt.

But I'm not sitting in the safety of nearness to Edward Cullen right now. He's been called out, alone, to meet with the sex-ed. study director. And I've not been called at all, and now won't be, so once more I've managed to do something wrong... But I can't think about that right now, or I'll start to cry. So I think instead about this morning again, and how scary it felt when Edward moved back to his own seat, leaving me to feel the eyes of Mr. Varner and everyone else on me as I tried to find the spot in my homework assignment where I worked out the next problem. I would have been lost completely if it weren't for the fact that one of those pairs of eyes was Edward's, and I know now for a fact that he will see if the pressure becomes more than I can handle, and will intervene. Thank goodness for Edward Cullen-he is a gift from God.


	4. Chapter 4

**More of Bella now…but before we get to microscopically-examining her angst, and in clear violation of good taste if not Fanfic's TOS, here is a poem that this Bella might have written if Edward never entered her life, and she had to make do with a disappointed (in her, and how emotionally high-maintenance she turns out to be) Mike, or just with herself. It might have surprised this Bella, how strong she is really, to survive in spite of herself (if she survived). **

**And as she came to terms with the pain of her life, her description of it might have gone something like this:**

**I hurt today, **

** just because…**

**Today is a hurting day.  
**

**It's human and needy,**

** this pain that I feel.**

**It threatens, cajoles and**

**downright refuses – or rather insists.**

**So I throw silly tantrums, **

** act out old drama**

**All in the hope –**

** the vain, childish hope –**

**That it will GO AWAY,**

** this pain.**

**And it does at times; it fades to black**

**Leaving me hopeful and happy**

** and cheery…**

**Until it returns,**

**Again and again**

**Relentlessly, always **

** wearing me down**

**Til the hope's not as bouncy,**

** or easily come by,**

**Even when the pain's knife edge is dulled.**

**This is living –**

** this is dying –**

**This is being human, not God;**

** not set apart;**

** not saved from suffering.**

**(Just ask Jesus what being human means.)**

**So I suffer, and hurt, and feel the pain **

** once more. And again. And again.**

**(Please God, no crucifixion.)**

**I won't let it claim me – this pain that endures.**

**I think I'd rather die first? I'm unsure on this point.**

**Though I know that I'll die; I'm assured this is true.**

**Some days that's a comfort; some days that just**

** makes me mad.**

**Mad or not, die I will – maybe soon,**

** maybe later.**

**But not now – not this moment.**

**Right now, right here, **

**I breathe in and breathe out.**

**I notice the pain, observe it; **

** sometimes embrace it, **

** sometimes fight it back in brilliant moments of will and power.**

**But mostly? **

**I feel it.**

**First are the flames licking at my innards, **

** growing in strength as they steal up my spine,**

** despair's red hot iron brandished against me.**

**Then come drowning rocking roaring waves of grief, **

** crashing down, swallowing whole,**

** just to release me, and start over again.**

**If only they would cancel out somehow – **

** the burning and the drowning –**

**But they don't.**

**They don't.**

**God help me, they don't.**

**No, despair and grief**

** (pain's own dear twins)**

** build, then ebb, then re-crescendo**

**Around and around and around they go**

**Circling sharks**

**Ever closer –**

**Until they dart away for a time.**

**Are they playing with me **

** before they finish me off?**

**Or will a well-placed blow finally **

** send them away…**

**"Not likely," I sigh, battered and cynical.**

**No matter anyway; they're here now –**

** these old friends… **

** these intimate enemies…**

** these fractious, longing, ever so stubborn**

** pieces of myself.**

**So steel my spine or crouch and cower,**

**Flail my arms or bare my neck,**

**Even passive, trying only to breathe –**

**There's no doubt about it, and there's no way around it: **

**Today is a hurting day.**

**And maybe – just maybe –**

**That's okay.**

**Disclaimer: Twilight and all its places, people and words belong to Stephenie Meyer…but I think she'd agree the love belongs to all of us. Hope you feel some of it here. **

**xoxo liza**

**xxxxxx**

To any underage and/or emotionally-vulnerable readers (and yes, I'm sneaking this author's message in where the story should start to catch the scroll-downers like me who just want their Edward-affection-fix right now): **Repeat after me. **"This story is not only made up, it is **wholly unrealistic**, and **maybe impossible**. **It is NOT real.** The author's life looks nothing like this, nor does the life of anyone she's ever known or heard of. We can FEEL possibilities that the universe will never, ever grant us…and though it hurts like hell not to get what we can so clearly see we need, **we can survive; we can grow stronger; we can evolve until the needs become wants and then fall away all together.** It may take years, or even decades, but we can get there, to a point where being alone no longer feels worse than death, and maybe even seems preferable to many other realistic options."

Very good; just a little more now—use a firmer voice. Sound like you really mean it!

"**I am strong** (even when I feel weak and scared). My continued survival on this brutal planet tells me so.

**I trust my intuition** (even when other people tell me I'm crazy). This is how I will find a place of wholeness and meaning that will make all the pain worth suffering.

And most of all, **I am a precious object deserving of tender loving care**—because Liza (and Liza's friend Justine, and whoever wrote that from their soul for the rest of us to take in too) says so! And because deep down, I know it myself, or I wouldn't be searching for the Edward who can see it too."

Good luck on your search, and remember to try to enjoy the journey whenever you can, because for most of us, that's all we get. But it's much more than a consolation prize; it's the secret to a happiness, no a _joy_, that transcends dependence on anybody else (except perhaps one's own idea of God). If it's interspersed with sorrow and even misery, well, it makes the joy all the sweeter, and our love all the more true and strong and wise.

And now, on to our regularly-scheduled emotion-porn…

I accidentally told Alice once last fall that I thought her brother was a gift from God, when she asked if it bothered me how bossy he could be. She snorted and rolled her eyes, adding a groan and "Oh, Isabella, you are so sheltered."

Alice had taken to calling me Isabella sometimes, just like Edward. We were in all the same junior-year college prep classes together, and as the fall wore on, I became good friends with her.

I think Edward got her to talk to me at first, and so I kind of avoided her for a while, not wanting to take advantage of Edward's kindness, or make Alice feel pressured to be nice to me just because her brother told her to. I confessed that to her later, and she laughed so hard at the idea she would do _anything_ just because her brother told her to. I didn't understand Alice at all, but I enjoyed her company—she's bright, cheerful, affectionate, and kind and loyal as well. I'm not sure what she saw in me, but we seemed to make good study partners, in school and out.

That's how I got to know her at first; she offered to let me join her Thursday night study group. It consisted mainly of the Cullens, and their romantic partners, with a few of us mere mortals thrown in. It was as much fun as it was helpful, (nobody can explain derivatives better than Ben Cheney, who's almost as patient with me as Edward), when it wasn't terrifying. But after Alice cracked down on Emmett and his enjoyment of making me blush (seniors and juniors studied together at the Cullens', explaining material back and forth to reinforce our understanding of it and, as Alice phrased it, to "expand our intellectual awareness"), I began to look forward to Thursday nights with almost no fear.

This was true even though Edward almost never joined us, preferring to study on his own, up in his room. (His "lair," Alice called it.) Still, he passed through once or twice each time, to say hello on his way to or from the kitchen. I won't lie and say I didn't live for those moments.

Usually, I didn't notice him until he was standing behind me, as he always seemed to choose a point near me to stand while he teased the people around me, or clarified a question someone had that none of the rest of us had been able to answer. (Edward was by far the smartest of all of us, and the best-read—except for Jasper, in the areas of history, philosophy and psychology.) As he was talking, he would reach out and lay his hand on my shoulder, rubbing his palm ever so gently up and down my back, and moving subtly closer to me the longer his speaking attention was focused elsewhere.

When he was done with the others, and just before he headed back to his room, or the Cullens' library, he would lean his head down next to me and say, "And what are you working on, Isabella?"

Then I would show him, flipping through the homework and notes I had finished that night, eager for his praise, which was always quickly and generously given.

Sometimes, I would have a particularly stupid or embarrassing question I wasn't able to bring myself to ask the group, and then I would ask Edward. Or rather, I would start out by saying, "Um, Edward?"

And he would smile and say, "Yes, sweetheart?"

And I would blush and lose my nerve and say, "Never mind."

And his hand would get heavier and he would lean in closer and breathe on me and say, "Never mind what, pretty girl?"

And I would blush harder, and drop my head but tilt it towards him, and avoid looking at him, while his thumb would start to rub mesmerizing circles and he would say, "It's okay, Isabella. Just show me."

Then I would turn to the page or the problem or the notes causing me trouble, and point at them, and he would read it and start asking me questions, until finally what I wanted to ask would come spilling out. He'd answer the question with a smile, and patiently work through as many "But why?"s as I could come up with until the topic was thoroughly exhausted.

We'd discovered philosophical differences this way, and Edward was forever entreating me to use reason to come to my conclusions, instead of feelings. Often, he'd check to see if I understood what he was explaining by asking humorously, "Does it _feel _right yet, sweetheart?"

But I always answered him seriously, because until I felt to the truth of something, I knew I'd never remember it.

By the time Edward was done with me, and saying good-night to everyone else, the study group would be winding down; sometimes it was over. Once, after Edward's valiant attempt to explain the physics of rear- vs. front-wheel drive to me (and I wasn't even taking physics, but the topic had been a point of debate between Emmett and Rosalie who were, and I found myself intrigued and completely mystified), the others had finished and even left. Only Jasper and Alice were still sitting in the room, watching us go back and forth like this:

Me: "But _why, _Edward?"

Edward: "Because it's a basic law of motion, Isabella! There is no more explanation than that, unless you want to get theological on me."

Finally I was afraid he was getting mad, and frustrated with me, so I just started nodding. But he saw right through me, and smiled, although the sigh he let out gave away he was a little worn out by me too.

"Sweetheart," he had said, "I think I have to ban you from ever taking physics."

At that Jasper started laughing, and even Alice giggled, making me blush of course, and then smile hesitantly at Edward, testing to see if he was mad at me or not.

"You are one-of-a-kind, Isabella," he said, but he didn't sound mad, and he pulled me in for a hug before Alice swept me away and up to her room for a little conversation before I had to go.

As comfortable as I had come to feel at the study group, or even casually visiting Alice after school and play rehearsal (Alice had talked me into being a script supervisor, which meant I soon knew the whole play by heart—and unfortunately better than most of the actors, besides Alice), I felt so awkward the first time she invited me over for dinner. Unfortunately, I was caught without a plausible explanation for why I couldn't come, having already mentioned Charlie's later-than-usual shift that day. So thanks to my big mouth, at dinner that evening there I was in the Cullens' beautiful home, with all the beautiful people that inhabited it, and their romantic partners, sitting around a picture-perfect table covered with gourmet food.

Edward alone didn't have a date present, although they were teasing him about meeting up with Lauren later at the dance club in PA they were planning on going to that night. Meanwhile, I had painfully noticed that he was avoiding making eye contact with me as we sat around in the family room waiting for dinner to be ready.

Still, when Mrs. Cullen called us all to dinner, he somehow materialized behind me at the dining room table and pulled out my chair for me, earning him an obnoxious comment from Emmett ["Afraid she'll run away, Sir Edward?"] which I'm too embarrassed, even three months later, to repeat.

Of course, everyone laughed, except for Edward's parents (although they smiled), and Alice who yelled at Emmett, and Edward who glared at Emmett before leaning down and whispering in my ear, "Don't mind him, Isabella. He's an ass," then patted my shoulder as he moved off to his own seat across and down the table from me.

I was facing Jasper, with Alice next to me. I felt badly about that, because I'm sure he would have preferred facing her. I couldn't look up at him, although he was nice as always and said "Hello, Bella, darlin'," when we all sat down. As hard as Rosalie has obviously worked to lose her southern accent, Jasper has seemed intent on holding on to his.

I like that about Jasper; both his stubborn desire to be who he is, even when it's so different, and how the way he talks makes him less scary somehow. I can see why Alice adores him, although personally I wouldn't want him for anything other than a big brother, or a good friend. If I knew how to be friends with boys.

Dr. Cullen was sitting next to me, at one end (the head, of course) of the table, and he was very gentlemanly, just like Edward. He asked me questions about Charlie and his favorite places to fish (that he used to drag me along to until I got old enough to stay home alone), and visiting Charlie's friends on the Quileute reservation (ditto, because unfortunately Charlie's friends were mostly men, and so I was usually uncomfortable there), and even invited me to think about volunteering at the hospital nursery. I was so focused on him, I started to feel at home without even realizing it, and the dinner flew by.

Until Alice pulled on my arm and said, "Did you hear me, Bella? Rose and I want you to come with us tonight. It will be fun! I have the perfect outfit for you, and a great idea for a new hairstyle I've been wanting to try out on you. You'll look gorgeous! What do you think? Come on, say yes! Pretty please?"

Alice was such a fast talker she got all this out with far more speed than I could process it, and while I was catching up, my glance moved around some of the rest of the table. It fell on a disdainful Rosalie, who clearly would rather I _didn't_ come, a sympathetic-looking Mrs. Cullen, and a pained-looking Edward in quick succession before my eyes wisely dropped to examine the weave of the linen tablecloth.

"Um, thank you Alice, but I have to get home," I managed to respond, my voice quiet and hoarse from being on the verge of embarrassed tears. I hate being the object of pity, as pitiful as I know I am.

Mercifully Alice heard me, not requiring me to repeat myself, and even more mercifully, she took my "No, thank you" at face value and didn't badger me further, responding only with, "That's too bad, Isabella. But I'm taking a rain check for another night."

I smiled at her, relieved, and said "Thanks, Alice," although inwardly I knew that would never, ever happen. I accidentally looked up at Edward then, and was horrified and ashamed to see the relief on his face too. I mean, I knew he just felt sorry for me, and wasn't remotely interested in me as a girlfriend. I knew he dated other people, people like Lauren, and Ashley, and somebody from Chicago in a long-distance sort of way. I knew I had less than no claim on him, and no reason to think I was anything but a temporarily-adopted kid sister of sorts. But still it hurt, that he would be so relieved I wasn't going out with him and his family, that I wouldn't be around to embarrass him or ask anything of his affections when he wanted to be focusing on someone else—someone prettier, someone more sophisticated, someone _better_ than me.

The pain was sharp and immediate, and I instantly regretted the relatively large quantity of food I had just eaten. Luckily, or maybe because she sensed my distress and was kind enough to offer quick distraction, Mrs. Cullen took that moment to stand and start clearing dishes, saying "If you all want to be back before curfew, you better get moving now."

All the rest of the high-school crowd cleared out fast, thanking her for the meal (it was delicious) and for letting them off the hook for clean-up duty. Before running off to grab her coat and touch-up her make-up, Alice turned to me and said, "Come on Bella; we'll drop you home on our way."

I was horrified all over again at that idea, and to remember that Alice had talked me into dropping my truck at home and letting her and Jasper drive me over to the Cullens' that day after school. If I had known they had planned a trip to Port Angeles afterwards, I never would have gone to dinner, and definitely not without my own means of transportation home. I felt so embarrassed, and trapped, and was desperately thinking of alternative ways home that were polite and plausible enough that Alice would leave me be.

I was cut short in this endeavor by Mrs. Cullen, who thankfully intervened and told Alice, "That's alright, Alice; I'll drive Bella home. I was meaning to grab a few groceries for brunch tomorrow, and this way I can get to know her a bit too." Then Mrs. Cullen turned to me and asked, "You don't mind keeping me company in the kitchen for a little while, do you sweetheart?"

My heart leapt a little at the precious "sweetheart" that I treasured hearing so much from Edward coming from the original source: his mother. I beamed at her, and lacking words for the moment, shook my head "No." Mind? Of course I didn't mind spending more time in the company of this kind-hearted, beautiful woman!

Mrs. Cullen smiled warmly back at me, and said, "Good. That's settled then," and turned to bring more dishes back to the kitchen.

I could feel the tears of relief and gratitude pooling in my eyes as I gathered up my own dishes to carry to the kitchen, now also my heaven-sent refuge from humiliation, when I felt a hand at my shoulder and heard a voice—his voice—saying in my ear, "Good girl, Isabella."

I didn't mean to do what I did next; truly I didn't. I didn't even think about it! My head just kind of automatically tipped towards the voice and the pressure on my shoulder, and before I realized what I was doing, the side of my head was rubbing up against Edward's arm. Next, three things happened simultaneously: Edward laughed, I froze, and Dr. Cullen cleared his throat.

I don't know what Edward and Dr. Cullen did after that, because I picked the pile of dishes I had carefully stacked up off the table and flew for the safety of the kitchen, almost knocking into Emmett Cullen from behind. Well, I did actually run into him, but Emmett is so big and brawny I just bounced right off. I was so embarrassed! (And part of my brain was in the moment marvelling over how it was possible to keep increasing the amount of embarrassment I felt, and idly wondering whether there was a top-capacity point at which it would be impossible to feel _more_ embarrassment, or whether I could just keep stock-piling the emotion to indefinite and unlimited heights. Or depths.)

But Emmett just turned and laughed, not meanly, at me, saying "All right, Little B, I'm moving, I'm moving." Then he turned around again and hollered at Mrs. Cullen, "Mom, you finally found a willing kitchen slave. See if you can keep her," before turning his attention to Rosalie, who had just finished scraping her plate and placing her dishes in the sink-full of soapy water, moving elegantly throughout, of course.

I moved off to the side, by the breakfast nook, and waited for the last of the non-Esme Cullens to clear out of the kitchen, resolutely staring at the tile floor even when I saw _his_ shoes move to the sink, and away again. I did allow myself to hear _his_ voice saying, with humor in it, and I like to think warmth, "Good night, Isabella; be good," before his feet followed the others' upstairs, then back down again in a herd of footfalls, then out the front door to where their cars were still parked in the drive.

Finally, with the door shut safely behind them and Dr. Cullen having said good-night to me and retired to his upstairs study, I could turn and look at Mrs. Cullen, starting to work at the sink, and ask with gratitude and relief, "What can I do to help?"

I shared a wonderful evening with her, loading the dishwasher and washing and drying the dishes used to cook the meal, and then even sitting down at the kitchen table with her and talking over a pot of tea. She was kind and gentle and sympathetic and most of all conveyed unusual interest in me, and it was a magical evening stolen from my normal life that I spent in her kitchen, under her loving care.

I don't know if I imagined it, but it almost seemed like she hesitated too to rise from her chair and clear the tea things when the grandfather clock in the hallway struck eight o'clock, saying "I suppose your father will be wondering where you are, Bella." As she said this she smiled at me with such warmth and compassion, it was almost as if she realized that Charlie wouldn't be wondering about much more than the outcome of whatever sporting event he was watching at the moment on ESPN.

I'm pretty sure that Charlie loves me, and I know he does his best to make me feel at home; it's just that he has no idea how to communicate that love, and he doesn't really have a place, or a purpose, for me in his life. He just wants to know I'm safe somewhere, but he's just as happy—happier, actually—if that somewhere is someplace other than the where he is, because if I am with him he has to interact with me. And it is perfectly obvious that interacting with me causes him something ranging from discomfort to distress, depending on my own mood and emotional state (my tears making him literally run from the house on any hopped-up errand he can think of).

So it was with sadness and regret that I exited Mrs. Cullen's Mercedes at the top of my driveway that night, although I tried hard to cover it with the gratitude and affection I also felt for her, and the way she had made me feel. Waving good-bye to her from the doorway after I let myself in, I watched as her lights backed up the driveway and then headed down the street, away from me. Calling "Good-night" in to my father, who was sitting in his recliner and watching ESPN as usual, I then ran up the stairs and threw myself into bed, just kicking off my shoes, where I curled up and fantasized that the Cullens adopted me until I fell asleep.

Despite the warmth and happiness I felt with Mrs. Cullen, or maybe because of it, I tried to avoid any more meals with the Cullen family after that. The contrast with my own home and family life was just too painful; so painful that I was able to avoid and create excuses for all the repeat invites a persistent Alice sent my way.

I did get talked into a pizza and movie night once, in the middle of November, though, and it was the most awkwardly lovely night of my whole life. Because of course, after the pizza boxes were cleared away, Dr. and Mrs. Cullen excused themselves and the rest of us headed into the family room—where I belatedly realized all the couples present were going to cuddle up. Before I could figure out what was happening and how to get out of it, Rose and Alice were both on top of Emmett and Jasper, respectively, in overstuffed armchairs seemingly expressly chosen and arranged for this purpose. Nobody else seemed to think anything odd of it, or of me just standing there feeling on display, but were instead engaging in passionate discussion about what movies we should—or shouldn't—watch, and in what order.

Edward appeared to be the designated master of ceremonies, because he was over at the immense library of DVD's, running his fingers over the titles and grabbing one here and there, while engaging in the debate from time to time, over his shoulder. I stood still and watched, trying to work up the nerve to quietly back up out of the room, but afraid that if I moved a muscle, Alice would notice and make me stay.

I hadn't yet gathered the resolve to exit before Edward had put in and started the first selection, and on his way to the large leather sofa in the middle of the room, grabbed my wrist and towed me behind him. He didn't speak a word to me, instead rebuffing the criticisms of Emmett and Rosalie over his current choice of movie, telling them—incomprehensibly to me—"She's only going to be awake for one, and it shouldn't be one that's going to give her nightmares. Be patient."

Then he sat down on the sofa and dragged me down next to him, reaching for a quilt folded at the end of the sofa and shaking it out, then wrapping it around me before pulling me onto his lap. I sat stone still, taking in this unexpected but extremely welcome turn of events. The others were still talking around me, but I don't know about what. Eventually, as the opening sequence started and I realized we would be watching an animated feature about a Japanese schoolgirl ["Spirited Away"], Alice shushed them and the room fell quiet.

Meanwhile, one of Edward's hands was moving leisurely up and down my back, petting me. As I slowly and somewhat reluctantly, afraid of the latent humiliation that always seemed to come with affection from Edward, melted into him, he whispered to me, "That's right, sweetheart; relax."

I think I whimpered; ugh, I know I did. Because Emmett said, "Shit, Edward, are you making her cry?" before Edward and Alice both hissed things at him, Edward's at least containing an expletive.

Somehow, getting the necessary humiliation over with sooner rather than later helped me relax more, just like Edward told me to, and I kind of just gave up and took the physical comfort I was so desperate for. Snuggling down so that the quilt he had placed over me covered my head, I pushed my head up against his chest, over the warmth and security of his heartbeat, and reached one hand up to grasp his shirt at his shoulder. All thought of watching the movie forgotten, I closed my eyes and hummed my contentment, and promptly fell asleep.

I know I fell asleep because I remember waking up as Edward carried me out to his car. I don't know if it was the cold of the night air or the movement that jarred me awake, but I do know it wasn't until he was opening the front passenger car door that I was conscious again. Yanking my head off his chest, eyes wide open in embarrassed terror, Edward saw that I was awake as he was settling me in the front seat, still wrapped in the quilt. Alice was behind him, carrying my jacket and backpack, and being very quiet for Alice. She squealed though when, after he smiled at me and said "Well, hello, sweetheart," Edward turned to Alice and said softly, "Allie, she's awake. Say good-night."

I looked up at Alice as Edward leaned over me and fastened my seatbelt, too surprised by my current circumstances to maintain the embarrassment for the moment. Alice smiled at me, no pity evident, and said, "I told you you'd have fun tonight. The movie was really good; next time you're over we'll watch it again, without Edward this time so you stay awake." And then, handing my jacket and backpack over to Edward who opened the back door and presumably set them down on the seat, she leaned down and hugged me. "I'm so glad you're here, Isabella. I've always wanted a baby sister."

And then in a flash she was gone, and Edward was shutting my door before rounding the front of the car and sliding in to the driver's seat to take me home.

The ride from his house to mine was a confusing combination of long, drawn-out moments that contained forevers in their seconds, and the rapid flight of time—away, away, away no matter how badly I wanted it to slow, or even to stop. Between the two extremes, I was dizzy by the time Edward pulled into my driveway. Charlie's cop car wasn't there, so he was either not done with his shift yet, or pulling extra duty, maybe due to a conflict down at the bars, or a car accident, or an alcohol-fueled domestic dispute. At that moment, I didn't care about the details; I was just extremely grateful that he wasn't there, and Edward was.

Edward seemed to be feeling the elasticity of time the same as I, or he was picking up on my hesitation to leave the safety of his car and responding with his usual chivalry by allowing me to linger. Finally, I worked up the courage to turn my head and look right at him. He was staring at me, a small smile on his lips. I smiled back.

He reached a hand out, and tentatively stroked down my cheek. I closed my eyes. I wanted to die, I was so content with this moment as the pinnacle of my lifetime. But I didn't; I just exhaled, a little too noisily to be polite. He laughed. I kept my eyes closed. Then I heard him, just barely: "You know that I…care for you, right, Isabella?"

This surprised me. Of course he cared for me. He was a caring kind of person. He cared for all sorts of people; I could see that. I opened my eyes in confusion, and once again saw him staring at me, intensity I didn't understand in his gaze this time. He seemed to expect, to want, even to need a reaction of some kind from me, so I nodded. I wasn't sure what I was agreeing to; I couldn't remember; I just knew I'd agree to anything he asked of me, anything he said. He looked relieved, and then he said, more business-like, "Good."

And with that he was up and out of the car, and back to my car door, opening it and undoing my seatbelt then scooping me up in his arms. "Key?" he asked as he moved up the steps of my front porch.

"Over the door," I answered.

He made a noise in the back of his throat, and said, "I can't believe the chief of police has such lax security. I don't like this."

I laughed. "There's nothing inside worth stealing, Edward. It's not like your house."

Edward had the door unlocked and the key returned to its place, and was moving across the threshold when he looked down and said, "You're wrong, Isabella. There's a treasure stored in here, and if any miscreant ever figures that out, it will be a problem."

I furrowed my brows at him, wondering why he was talking like a detective story or a pirate adventure, and he smiled back at me, still holding me in his arms as he climbed the stairs to my bedroom. "But I'm a good problem-solver, especially when it comes to you, so I guess it's okay for now."

I laughed again; the idea of telling Charlie that Edward Cullen didn't approve of his security measures making me feel silly.

Edward was now across the threshold of my room, and I paused to wonder how he had known which room was mine—and realized that the wreath of dried flowers hung up by velvet ribbon probably was a tip-off as to which of the two bedrooms wasn't Charlie's.

There was a tense moment as he stood there, surveying—to my mortification—my small and juvenile room. The only posters on my wall weren't of rock bands, but of animals I had liked when I was seven and had spent one rainy summer day decorating with the pages of an outdated calendar. I had grown to love the familiar pictures, and had never had the heart to remove them. The cover on my bed was a Holly Hobbie patchwork quilt made by my Grandmother Swan, a source of much love and security, who sadly died when I was four. My stuffed animals were spread throughout the room, several sitting in the rocking chair, more stretched across the small window seat, and two favorites—the pink dog and brown plush bear I'd had since I was a baby—waiting for me on the bed.

Yes, there was an ancient computer on my desk surrounded by homework papers, and a teetering old bookshelf filled with books, at least some of which were grown-up titles—though most of them were not. Ugh, and worst of all, the book currently sitting on my night-stand (thank goodness I had recently, if reluctantly, sent my Winnie-the-Pooh bedside lamp to the attic and replaced it with a more utilitarian version) was A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I loved that book, and re-read it with regularity, especially when I needed comforting more than usual. But I didn't want Edward to know I loved it, and as I saw his gaze lingering on it after having made an intense visual circuit of the room, I buried my head in his shoulder as the nearest alternative to sand.

This broke the spell, and he laughed. Holding my head to his shoulder with one comfortingly large hand, he leaned in and quickly kissed the back of my head, and then nosing in further, kissed me more slowly on one of my cheeks. I froze; Edward had never kissed me like that before. And now all I could think about was wanting him to kiss me again. But his mouth was moving away from me, and then he was straightening back up and carrying me further into my room, towards my bed.

I didn't watch, my eyes screwed shut against embarrassment and the fear of this interlude ending, but I felt his body move as he pulled the covers back on my bed and carefully set me down on it, his hands moving to my hips and gently pulling them away from his waist and onto the bed so that I was sitting up, my legs hanging over the side. I might have been hard-pressed to release his neck from my power hold, but he didn't make me, because he didn't stand back up. Instead, he crouched on the floor beside the bed and started in on removing my tennis shoes. Startled by this, I pulled my arms back to my body, wrapping them around my torso now instead of his neck.

Watching as he pulled first one, then the other shoe off and set them neatly to the side on the floor next to my bed, I was yet speechless when he looked up and into my face and said, "Where do you keep your pj's, baby girl?"

I could feel my mouth drop, and my eyes widen, though my brain ceased to function in any sort of useful manner. The words "baby girl" echoed in my mind over and over; I had never heard them used before, except in that Carlos Santana song that seemed so dangerous, and of course in describing actual babies. Then why did they feel so right?

For once, Edward didn't laugh, even gently, at my emotional reaction to him. Instead, he ran his thumb down my cheek, watching me in my shock, and then leaned in to hug me. I didn't have time to hug him back before he was up and away, pulling open dresser drawers after first checking under my pillows. I blushed fire to see Edward looking into my underwear drawer, but he moved quickly on to the next drawer down.

I usually wear sweatpants and long-sleeved cotton shirts to bed; they keep me the warmest, and the most comfortable. But still in the drawer second-from-the-top were a couple of nightgowns my Grandma Corneils, my mother's mother, had sent me for Christmas. They were both long-sleeved and flowered flannel covered with lace, (Grandma C. had never really gotten used to the idea of her daughter living in Phoenix), and they were hideous. I was berating myself at top inner volume for feeling too guilty about hurting my Grandma's feelings to get rid of the monstrosities when I could, and now Edward Cullen—EDWARD CULLEN—was pulling the pink one out like it was exactly what he was looking for. I couldn't watch any more, so I closed my eyes.

Which was good, because Edward's next step was moving back to stand in front of me and, without preamble or warning, grabbing a hold of the bottom of my shirt and pulling it up and off of me. In my surprise, I hadn't even managed to lower my arms before he had the pink flannel nightgown on, pulling it quickly down over my head and arms and lowering its edges down to the bed. Straightening the cuffs and then doing up the buttons at my chest, I was on fire with the intimate movements of Edward's hands on my body.

He seemed affected by something too, because his voice was not like anything I had heard from him before when he spoke next; it was hoarse, and heavy, and very commanding. So despite the intoxicated buzzing in my brain and the warring hope and panic, when he said, "Lay down, head on your pillow, baby girl," I did it.

As soon as I was horizontal, I registered something I had been previously certain I would never experience: a boy—but not just any boy, Edward Cullen!—undoing the button and zipper on my jeans. I sucked in my stomach, away from his electric fingers, but needn't have worried about bracing myself for anything more, because as fast as he had removed my shirt he removed my jeans, pulling them down my legs, his knuckles tracing smoothly down the outside of my hips, my thighs, my calves, even my ankles. As distant and uncertain as my mind had become, I could still register the jeans hitting the floor as Edward discarded them.

And I definitely made note of the cold air against my bare, exposed legs. Instinctually, I pulled up my knees and started turning to the side, in towards the middle of the bed and away from Edward's body now sitting next to me. Edward didn't like that, however. Easily catching both my knees with one arm wrapped around them, he halted my legs' descent, holding me in mid-air. His opposite hand, fingers extended, landed gently on my stomach, his thumb smoothing soothing yet incendiary circles around my navel, the edge of his palm rubbing up against the waistband of my...of my...of my underwear, the comforting weight of his hand pressing down on my belly.

Surely I was imagining the slight push of his hand against the elastic, lowering it ever so slightly? My body didn't think I was imagining things though, because without my permission, it suddenly arched into his hand, in the most suggestive, and surprisingly flexible, manner. And I moaned. Loudly.

Both of us froze for a moment after that, the navel circles and nudging of my waistband discontinued, but his hand and arm still holding me firmly down. Then the atmosphere broke with Edward's usual chuckle, and the typical forest fire on my face. If it had been possible to invent a new, more intense and extreme shade of red, I would have in that moment. Edward sensed this, as usual, and in an instant was nose-to-nose with me so that I could feel his warm exhales on my already-heated skin. My eyes were firmly shut of course, and my head was trying to do a 180 on my spine, as Edward started kissing my cheek. Over and over, light, delicate kisses on my cheek and ear and hair and temple and nose. "Isabella, you're perfect," he finally said as he pulled away from me, his hand still in place on my belly and his arm still wrapped around my knees. I sniffed, both expressing my disdain and disbelief for his comment and trying to hold back tears.

I don't know what his reaction to that was, because I refused to open my eyes. But in the next moment, time and meaningful thought stopped anyway, because Edward Cullen laid his head down on my stomach. My naked stomach. Even now, almost two months later, I can't imagine why he did that. I was too focused on restricting food intake as a means of emotion control for it to be comfortable, I'm sure; and it wasn't more than a light pressure, so he must have been contorting himself rather painfully not to rest his weight on me while still holding my body in place, his hand having moved up to my shoulder, where it pressed lightly but insistently down.

Yet he stayed there, unmoving, for many breaths. And to my surprise and relief, as my automatic body functions kicked back in and my stomach moved up and down with my breath, into then away from Edward's cheek, his presence there soothed me. Over and over I felt myself pressing so slightly into him, and over and over he stayed in place, not moving away, not retreating. And somehow from this elemental acceptance of my body, my existence, came the most soothing feeling of love. It blossomed from my belly to my spine to my skull, and down my arms and legs.

Eventually I relaxed the knees he still had hold of, and he must have felt this too, for soon after he raised his head, hooked his arm under my knees, and lifted my compliant body as his hand moved from my shoulder to pull my bunched-up nightgown down. He accomplished this so quickly and skillfully he was lowering my legs gently to the bed, the gown straight and flat under and around me, before I registered his removal from my body.

As he let go of my ankles, having run his hand down my legs as he smoothed down the fabric, I curled up and in and to the side, making myself as small as possible. He pulled the blankets up and around my shoulders, tucking them firmly around me, so I almost felt held by him again. It felt good, but not as good as his hand, which was gently stroking along my hairline and down the side of my face, the backs of his fingers ever so softly brushing warmth and affection and… something I didn't dare name… into my soul. I was slipping quickly into sleep when the brushing stopped and Edward Cullen leaned down to kiss me, one last time. As his lips left my cheekbone, he whispered, "Sweet dreams, Isabella," and then in one fluid motion up and away, he was gone.

I lay there, instantly rigid, panting, eyes squeezed shut, afraid-elated-ashamed-ecstatic-confused-hopeful-scared. There was silence in the room, and I listened so hard it hurt. And then I heard the wall switch click off, and heard my room door close almost-shut, and with mounting horror, heard Edward's footsteps descend each creaky stair, moving farther and farther away from me. I heard the screen door slam and almost cried out, then felt such relief as it opened again a short time later. I worked out in time that he must have gone back to the car for my bag and coat, because next I heard the front door close, the lock turn and the screen door click shut more quietly. Then, despite my every desperate wish that it would not be, I heard Edward's car start and back carefully down the driveway and away down the street.

I thought I would have to explode from the intensity and pain of the emotion I was feeling in that moment; but once again, my physical body disappointed me, and failed entirely to follow through on the actions my emotions required. Lashing out in feelings instead, my insides were assaulted with shame sharp as knives and guilt thick as cold, heavy cement, feeling alternately eviscerated by and entombed in grief. After twisting and turning, I finally chose to focus on the positive, and curled up into as tight a ball as I could manage, falling to sleep with daydream after daydream of watching movies on Edward Cullen's lap, and driving home with him in some fantasy dimension where going home meant the same place to both of us.

I woke to rain drumming steadily on the roof; the gray light of morning well-established. I didn't at first allow myself to remember the events of the night before, but worked on untwining myself from my blankets, finding an unexpected addition on top. The quilt from Edward's house. Its sumptuous colors and rich fabric looked as out of place against poor old frayed Holly Hobbie as I knew I did sitting next to Alice Cullen.

But I was so glad it was there. It represented hope that I had never known before; hope that someone—that Edward—might see something in me, some small, neglected part; some tentative possibility; that was worth—that made me worth—enduring all the emotion my mind churned out in order to help me be the strong and loving and capable person I could just barely almost see in myself sometimes. Surely he wouldn't have left such a beautiful quilt by accident, tucked around me like that? And surely, he wouldn't have trusted me with it if he didn't mean to come back for it, for me, sometime?

I still have that quilt, carefully folded, wrapped in tissue paper, and placed on a shelf in my closet. I only get it out in my most desperate moments, and I've only slept under it one time since the night Edward brought me home. I prefer not to think about that other time, when I reenacted Edward's care for me by myself, trying desperately to pretend that he wasn't gone from Forks, and I wasn't alone again. It didn't work very well anyway.

Luckily, he came back, and even apologized (not that he owed me anything) for leaving so suddenly, with no explanation except what a sad-faced Alice managed on his behalf. I tried not to take it personally, when I didn't see him again for weeks after that magic night, but somehow I knew it was. Personal, I mean. Like Icarus, I had flown too near the sun, and like him too, the warmth of it had destroyed the possibility of further flight. Solidly on the ground now, I hoped only to regain the distant positive regard of Edward Cullen, and desperately tried, am still trying, to squash all irrational dreams of anything different, anything more, into the most distant, unacknowledged recesses of my difficult brain.

But the quilt still sits, unmentioned by either of us, in my closet. Despite my rational acceptance of my minor and incidental place in his life, I can't bear to part with it, and I am so grateful (without thinking about it, because that hurts too much) that he hasn't asked me to. I've almost brought it up to Alice, more than once, but having to guard myself with her now too—for both our sakes—it just hasn't made it past my lips. So though I feel guilty, still seeing it there, I am always relieved as well to find the rich colors gleaming in the darkness.

Just as I am relieved to know that Edward Cullen is here, in this school with me now, and usually in the same classroom. And unaccountably still ready and willing to step in and help me, cover for me, cue me into getting normal high-school behavior almost-right. I'm proud of myself for accepting that much without getting more. It's taken a lot of firm conversations with myself, and a few threats from Charlie about sending me back to Renee, and of course rivers of tears, to get me to this point. But I'm so grateful to be here. A fleeting, insubstantial but still real part of Edward Cullen's world.

I'd say he was part of mine, but he isn't. He's all of it; he's everything. I know that's wrong, and unhealthy, and most of all stupid, but I can't seem to help it. And really, can you blame me? He's _right here_, in front of me, around me; in bio class, right next to me. And he's as kind and careful and just…_aware_ with me as always. So I'm going to soak up every moment with him, and try so hard to make it part of me forever, so that when I have to let him go, or rather accept his leaving, maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to continue on without him. For Charlie's sake. And for Renee's. And maybe even for Edward's.

Because there's guilt in his eyes when he looks at me sometimes. That never used to be there, before that night. Affection, humor, incredulity, even anger were all things I'd seen in him, but never guilt. Now I worry that it's the mainstay of his interactions with me. I want to tell him not to feel guilty about me; that he's given me far more than he could ever take away, but that would be presumptuous, and maybe not quite true. Whether he wants to or not, he holds whatever small positive regard I have for myself in the palm of his hand. I hate myself for it, but it's true: whatever Edward tells me, I believe, or I hope to; whatever Edward asks of me, I do, or I try to.

Like this morning, in the confusing and overwhelming moment as I turned the pages of my homework trying to find the problem Mr. Varner wanted me to write out on the board, part of me was patiently waiting. And I didn't wait long. Soon, there was Edward's hand stilling my anxious page turns; there was Edward's warm body leaning into mine as he pulled the assignment out of my hands and flipped to just the right spot, pointing with one long finger where I should begin. Then there was Edward's hand on my shoulder, pushing downward enough that, paradoxically, I was able to rise. And finally, Edward's voice, warm humor in it, reminding me: "Isabella, you need this," as he handed the assignment back to me, folded and ready for my use.

Of course, there was also his smile, projecting safety and acceptance and, damn it!, love, whether it's a universal sort of love he'd share with anyone who needs it, or a love just for me, I can't afford to ask myself and I don't care in the moments I see it, sense it, feel it. I need it, and so I take it, and smile my gratitude in return, and hopefully my humility; my awareness of his kindness to me, and my unworthiness.

More than anything else, this is what I'm left with as I approach the whiteboard at the front of the pre-calc. class on a dreary January morning in Forks, or wait alone at a lab table for the partner I depend on but will never deserve: a sense of my inadequacy as a person. But it doesn't slow me down, or trip up my copying of my carefully-worked out and Edward-checked homework, or keep me from depending on him everytime he'll let me, because I'm used to it.

For as long as I can remember, I have known that there is something wrong with me, and no matter how hard I've tried, I've never been able to make it quite right. At least with Edward around, I'm closer to it than I ever have been before. So maybe there's hope for me yet. And if not, at least right now, right this very moment, somewhere in this school…there's Edward. I don't care if it means I'm naïve and greedy and so very, very wrong; I'll take Edward over hope any day.

No, that's not true, not exactly. Let me try again: Edward IS hope. It's needy and selfish and makes me an emotional vampire I know, and I feel bad, bad, bad about it, but it's true. So there. I said it.

I'm so sorry, Edward.


	5. Chapter 5

**Like a slowly-plodding horse—make that old, worn-out mule—I am writing this story. I know the direction I'm going, but have no idea what terrain I'll find along the way. Or what weather. And meanwhile, people keep stopping me and adding things to my back. What doesn't fit on my back they strap to my sides, or balance on my head, or have me drag along behind me. And the thing is, I ****_like_**** this. I ****_want _****this. I ****_ask for _****this. Occasionally even ****_beg_****. Crazy, f'in mule I am. **

**Let's see, what's in the saddlebags today? Well, husband's mid-life crisis got dropped in like not one but two tons of bricks back in September…turns out maybe I'm not the mule for him after all. While he's figuring this out, and all its practical implications, I'm trying to love and take care of him, because that's what a mule, and an earthworm, does. And because I love him, silly man. And because he is the father of child 1 and child 2, of course. Luckily for me, he is a good man, if a fickle one, so he won't waste my love, or his; he'll just misplace it from time to time.**

**Which brings me to the impatient rider that hopped on back about October; he's the need to make money, and goes by the initials R.L. (for Real Life). Or, when my hooves hurt, I call him R.L.S. (for Real Life Sucks—pardon my attitude). He's a bossy dude, and keeps hollering things like, "Where's your resume?" Or, "Writin' fanfiction ain't gonna fix your car!" And my personal favorite, "Whatcha good for, anyway?" **

**To which I placidly reply, "Not much, thanks for asking." **

**I keep hoping he'll get frustrated with me enough to jump off and pester somebody else, but I guess that's not real loving of me, so maybe I should work on loving him instead. (Clearly, his mama didn't.)**

**Child 1 and Child 2 are in there, of course, having a grand old time playing army men in the saddlebags, drinking out of whatever canteens they happen to find (so far, no booze, thank goodness), and occasionally whacking each other over the head with the frying pans hanging off the saddle. If only they would learn to cook with them instead, I would be a happier horse. But I love them as they are, and they love me, so all is well.**

**Meanwhile, there are other people's children in there too, and their loneliness and learning disabilities and need for structure and love. Those are the burdens I almost always stop for, and occasionally chase down. Because, as you probably know, they aren't burdens at all, but gifts, and beautiful reasons for living. If also temporary impediments to writing this story.**

**Friends, my mother, cousins, my mother-in-law, neighbors and aunts and school volunteer work galore—they're all in there too, and I add more every day. Because I'm crazy, and crazy lucky (they go together well).**

**That's the update on the update…hope you're well, and towing interesting and loving loads yourself. And if R.L.S. hops on your back too—or has been there all along—well, at least we're not alone; we're together.**

**Much love,**

**Liza**

**Disclaimer: I'm broke and always will be, but I don't begrudge Stephenie Meyer a cent of her well-earned Twilight fortune. May she live to be a very old and happy woman, hopefully the happier for the joy she's brought all of us. Thank you, Ms. M.!**

XXXXXX

_For EnidBarb, and all the rest of you who have been kind enough to leave me feedback and encouragement. I appreciate you, and your loving care. xoxo liza_

_p.s. Am I the only one laughing at how long it's taking Edward to get across the school? Forks High is not that big, Cullen! We're on Chapter 5 already and the poor boy's still walking to the meeting from Chapter 1. Sorry about that; he'll get to his initial destination by the end of this chapter; promise._

_And when is someone going to send me an Edward cocks-detector (as in "Edward cocked his head")? Giggle, giggle. (Reminds me of my husband's insistence on using a stud detector to hang things on the wall—I always hold it up to him and pretend it beeps. Now why do you suppose he wants to dump me?) Anyway, screwing (not that kind!) up my courage to read most of what I'd posted for this story so far was a painful reminder of my need for editorial advice, though I would never be able to bring myself to read it even if someone gave it. _

_So thanks for your patience, and your forgiving attitude. Now back to Edward's journey…_

As I crossed the courtyard to get to the counselor's office and my solo meeting with the researcher, my mind went to the night when everything changed between me and Bella; well, not changed exactly, but intensified. And afterwards? I can't talk about that part yet.

Anyway, that night back in November, I had held Bella on my lap while pretending to watch movies, and really had just thought over and over again how right her head felt against my chest, and how much I wanted to just keep her there. And when after she fell asleep, she nuzzled her head into me and reached up with one small hand to grab hold of my shirt, like a baby monkey holding on to its mother? I thought I'd fucking die with the joy of it.

Even Emmett noticed the happiness radiating off me and said, loudly and in his usual crass way, "Hey Bro…What's Baby B up to under the covers over there? You look too happy to be Edward." I told him to fuck off, of course; that's pro rata for our conversations. But I wasn't the least bit pissed—and he was right, I was too happy. I should have known it wouldn't last.

But it lasted a little longer that night; it even got better.

I wasn't sure what I really had in mind when I got out of the car to carry her into her house. I mean, a normal person would have just sat there, and waited for her to extricate her own self from the front seat, and unlock her own front door, and wave at the window after I had carefully made sure she was safely in the house with the door re-locked. That would have been Cullen standard operating protocol.

But first off, I had the blanket pretty securely wrapped around her, and I wasn't sure she _could_ extricate herself. And more importantly, I didn't want her to. I just about flew around the car in order to be the one opening the door and pulling her into my arms, and then to be the one unlocking the house and carrying her over the threshold, and then –without any words being said to break the magic of the moment—to be the one carrying her into her room.

Bella's never been in my room. She stuck her head in once, carefully keeping the rest of her body in the hallway, to call me to dinner at my mother's request (my mom loves that girl too.) But she ran away as soon as I had looked at her, and my invitation to her to come in had fallen on her rapidly retreating back. I had laughed at her shyness, and hadn't worried about missed opportunities; I had thought I would have all the time in the world to lure her in slowly.

I had been wrong, and the pain of that disappointed expectation—brought about by my own stupidity and arrogance—lanced through me once more. Still, I was beginning to hope I'd get a second chance with her, as much as I didn't deserve it.

And thinking about how much I _didn't _deserve it made me remember the rest of that night.

I had driven home from Bella's in a daze. I mean, I couldn't believe what I had just done.

And I definitely couldn't believe what she had just _let_ me do. No, she didn't just let me, she…she soaked me up; she took me in. I've had sex before, and not just with one partner, thank you very much; but none of what I've done with other girls has anything on the unexpected intimacy I shared that night with Isabella Swan. I've never seen anyone more naked, even though she wasn't, technically. And I've never been more…turned on? Satisfied? Intrigued? All of the above, and more. More. I wanted more.

And I knew she did too.

Already, I had been feeling guilty, and uncomfortable, as I started driving back home and the distance between us grew. I felt an unseen but very real force pulling me backwards, back to her, and by the time I had arrived at my house I was ready to turn around and drive straight back to her home again. _I could just stay until her dad gets home from work_, I told myself. _I could let myself in with the key—and I can't believe the chief of police leaves the key to his house available to any asshole paying attention!_ [I did not reflect on how that might include me]_—and just wait on the sofa downstairs after I check on her, just for a second, just to make sure she's okay; she wouldn't even need to know I was there_.

I was imagining this scenario, sitting in the car with the engine running, and in my imagination had just started in on my speech to her father, explaining my dedication to his daughter "She needs me!" and delicately chastising him for not being more careful with her, "I can't believe you'd leave her alone at night, with the damn key to the front door fucking accessible on the front porch!"

Okay, so maybe the speech wasn't delicate yet; but I had the whole drive back over to work on it, and I had my hand on the gear shift to start off when I saw my dad's headlights approaching.

I waited, giving him time to pull into the garage before I pulled out again. But he didn't. He parked the car right in front of the open garage door, and came around to me. Pausing outside the passenger door, he knocked on the window and I rolled it down, after which he leaned in and said, "Can I come in?"

Surprised, I unlocked the door. And in he came, sitting down and making himself comfortable in the front seat where Bella had just been a short while before.

I took the hint and turned the car off, before turning to him and saying, with real curiosity, "So what's the occasion for the late-night chat?" It wasn't midnight—my curfew—yet; just shortly after 11, so normally I knew he wouldn't question a trip that time of night. We often head out about then on a weekend, to the convenience store for food or to pick up a movie, or to drop somebody home or pick somebody up.

"I was going to ask you what's the occasion for the late-night drive?" my dad responded, sounding light and humorous, but with a serious undertone that let me know I needed to answer. "Your mom said Bella had gone already when I called before leaving the hospital."

"Yeah, I took her home," I confirmed, starting to feel an ominous chill creep up along my spine. I fought it, forcing my tone to sound confident and cheerful, though I know I faltered at the end. "I'm thinking of heading back there now, just to keep her company until her dad gets home; you know, make sure she's okay."

"I'm sure she's fine, son," Carlisle said. My dad wasn't usually one to patronize me, so I didn't understand why he was doing that now.

"Well, I'm sorry to disagree with you, Dad, but Bella is rarely fine." A reckless part of me decided, against the warnings in my spine and stomach to shut the hell up, to plunge ahead. I didn't have anything to be ashamed of, I told myself. I'm just trying to do the right thing. So I said so. "I'm just trying to do right by her."

"That isn't your responsibility, Edward. It's her father's."

"Well he isn't doing a very good job!" Shit, I was starting to get upset, and to show it.

"And that isn't your problem either."

"Like hell it isn't! She needs me, Dad!"

"That's what I'm worried about, son. That isn't healthy, not for her, and most definitely not for you."

"What the fuck are you talking about? You don't give Emmett and Alice a hard time for –"

"This is not a romantic attachment you're talking about, Edward. You said it yourself, she's looking to you for the care her father isn't giving her—"

"So?" I broke in, outraged.

"So," he repeated, patiently if arrogantly (I get it from him), "You can't be her father, Edward. You're only 17 yourself. Just a kid, with your whole life in front of you. You can't get sucked in—"

"No one's 'sucking me in', Dad! I love her!"

This gave us both pause. I hadn't actually realized that until I said it, out loud. But then I was certain it was true. I love Isabella Swan.

My dad looked at me, shocked. And if I'm not mistaken, panicked, which at the time, didn't make any sense at all.

It made a little more sense later, after I'd fallen for his bait, hook line and sinker. It made some more sense much later, after I was back home again, in the guilty aversion of his eyes when Alice gave me the cold shoulder or told me off at dinner for the pain I had caused Isabella, and the way Bella was avoiding all of us, poor Alice included.

But it didn't all come together until Mom pulled me aside one afternoon during our family Christmas getaway at our cabin in Colorado. The others were off for one last run down the mountain, and my dad was holed up in his den (our cabin is really a very well-equipped and luxurious house) with a pile of medical journals he'd been saving up for months. I was having a crappy day, much like almost every day since I'd left Forks without any word to Isabella about where I was going and why. And then one of the bindings on my stupid ski boot had snapped and I was just like "Fuck it!" and was planning on spending the rest of the day in my room (yes, our "cabin" has four bedrooms), listening to music and just biding my time until I could be back in Forks, monitoring Isabella from afar.

My mom had other ideas. "Edward, come and help me in the kitchen," she called when she heard me come in (I might have been stomping). I tried to buy her off with promises of help with the dishes later, but she wasn't going for it. "What does a mother have to do to get some time with her almost-grown son, who's going to be out of her everyday life in a matter of mere months?"

There is no effective antidote to maternal guilt, Esme-style, other than just giving in, so that's what I did. And in between chopping the peppers and manning the wok, my mom explained the root of my father's assholeness towards Isabella.

"Your dad is so proud of you, Edward."

A snort was all that got from me. I didn't give a damn what that man thought about me at the moment; he had sold me out, and worse, he had sold Isabella out. I didn't know what his problem was, and I didn't think I cared.

Esme sighed, and tried a different tack. "He's afraid."

"Right."

She didn't address my sarcasm. She almost didn't seem to remember I was there, getting a distant and thoughtful look on her face until she finally said, "I never told you about how your father and I ended up getting married."

"Yes, you did. You and dad had a barbeque on the beach, and passed Emmett around along with the beer bottles and bongs… you confessed all this when you gave me the drinking and drugs lecture."

My mom smiled, happily agreeing, "Yes, that's what we did, and it was wonderful."

She paused, looking at me as her smile faded. Then she continued, "But I never told you why we did it that way, instead of having a big white church wedding."

I raised my eyebrows, figuring her pregnant belly would have been explanation enough for postponing church services indefinitely. But that wasn't what came out. Looking away from me, my mom said quietly, "My parents refused to acknowledge your dad. In their mind, he wasn't good enough for me."

Whoa. This was news. "You didn't tell me that."

"I never needed to before. When you came along…well, you were everything any pair of status-conscious social-climbers could hope for from an undesirable initial match: brilliant, handsome, athletic, charming; my parents fell in love with you, and in doing so finally learned to start accepting Carlisle. He had pretended to not be bothered by their coldness to him, but he grew up alone, an outsider in your great-aunt's home. My parents' rejection had hurt him deeply, even more so because he had next to no family of his own, and their new-found acceptance meant the world to him—only it wasn't because of him, it was because of you."

"Oh," was all I could manage in response. This took some thought before I'd know what to make of it.

But my mom wasn't finished. "Your dad has never resented you for that, Edward. I know that to be true, in my heart, and that's just one part of what makes him the amazing man I love. But he is a little more…emotionally-invested in your decisions than he would be with Emmett, or with Alice. You haven't noticed that before because up until now, you always chose the right, the impressive, the _safe _choices on your own."

Now I was mad. "And now I'm just acting out, being recruited for early acceptance to Ivy League schools and working in a medical laboratory in my spare time, not to mention perfecting an investment program that has doubled the family's net worth? [Truth was, I had made a couple of lucky stock picks based on Alice's remarkable intuition, but there was the seed of a profitable computer model there too, and I was proud of it.]

"That's not what I'm talking about, Edward," my mom said dismissively.

"Then what dangerous choice can he possibly be worried about? Emmett's the one with the predilection for pot [after being scared straight back in Chicago, he's re-discovered the joys of getting baked once in a while with his equally-happy-to-be-high girlfriend], and Alice is the dangerous driver [it's true; that girl has a lead foot and unreliable reflexes]. I don't mind him getting an ego boost off my life, Mom; hell, for as much time and effort as the two of you have put into raising us, that's the least I can do. But I DO mind being treated as if I'm a problem child, when I've not done the first thing to deserve it!"

"You're not the problem, Edward; Bella is." The words seemed to echo outrageously in the kitchen, and I had to swallow back the rage they brought forth in me.

Still, I was mad. "Now that's just bullshit, Esme. That girl is the sweetest thing on earth, and couldn't corrupt me if she was hell-bent on trying."

"I know, Edward; believe me, I know. But she's not what your dad wants for you."

"What—he wants me to date a gold-digging vamp in high heels with fake tits?"

"Edward!"

"I'm sorry, Mom, but I'm royally pissed that just because she doesn't look rich—"

"Sweetheart, that's not the problem."

"Then what is? Spell it out for me, Mom, because I'm not getting it."

"Bella is a girl who gets married."

I blinked. "He'd rather I date someone who just wants to have sex?"

"No. But he'd much rather you'd date someone as motivated to succeed, in conventional, career-oriented ways, as you are. He's afraid she's going to slow you down; change your life's course into something more pedestrian, less accomplished, less successful, less impressive. You are Carlisle's proof that he is a brilliant, worthwhile man, and he's afraid you're going to let him, and his unfair expectations, down."

"What a crock of shit." I couldn't believe what she was saying.

"Yes, it is, and I've told him so. And I think he might be beginning to see it. He just can't quite admit to himself yet how badly he's wanted the reassurance of raising successful children. It's funny, when my parents died, I thought he'd lighten up on himself a little bit, but it's actually gotten worse. Maybe if I'd made him talk about it, back when my mother and father were first being so awful to him… But I was trying to spare his feelings, so I pretended not to notice."

"Not a good example of the open and honest communication you preach so much about, Mom."

She laughed. "That's what parenting is all about, Edward—trying to get your children not to make the same mistakes you did. Of course, you probably just end up strong-arming them into different mistakes, but that's life for you."

"So what am I supposed to do about Dad?"

"Do? There's nothing you _can_ do, Edward, and I hope I haven't made a mistake in telling you all this. It's a burden to become aware of your parents' failings, but hopefully it makes life a little more understandable too. And what you can understand, maybe you can start to forgive?"

"I don't blame Carlisle for the fact I was an asshole to Isabella, Mom." [Actually, that was a lie. I had been blaming him, but now that I thought about it, that was a total cop-out. I choose my own actions.] I'm not sure what there is to forgive."

"Then maybe you need to think about it a little more. Or maybe just acknowledge how much Isabella means to you."

There was silence as I got over the shock of what she'd just said. Unlike with my father, I hadn't admitted to my mother that I loved Isabella. And somehow, I don't think my father told her. Still, she knew.

And for whatever fucked-up reason, I couldn't meet my mother's eyes in that moment. Though somehow I was desperate for her reassurance too. "She's pretty great, isn't she?"

"She's extremely great, Edward. And I know she'll forgive you, if you ask her."

"I know. She already has; I mean, I apologized for leaving without telling her where I was going, and she said it was okay and all," I almost felt myself blush, admitting to my mom what my…girlfriend? That wasn't right. No, just my girl. Isabella is definitely my girl.

"But you didn't really acknowledge what that did to her, did you?" my Mom rightfully pointed out, albeit gently. I didn't deserve gentle, but I took it.

I shook my head "No," of course. I still couldn't acknowledge to myself what I had done to her, let alone admit it out loud to Isabella herself. I was hoping to be spared that, I guess. I was a coward.

"Maybe I'm not good enough for her, Mom."

"No one human is good enough for the best parts of someone else, Edward; that's a universal problem. The solution is in your awareness of it."

I smiled, seeing a way to divert us back to safer territory, away from my emotional vulnerability (who knew I had any?). "Are you saying Isabella isn't good enough for me?"

She laughed, I'm sure as much at me trying to change the focus as at the idea of Isabella being inadequate. "No, she's an exception to the rule."

I nodded, my agreement a foregone conclusion. "Now we just have to get Dad to see that."

"I think he's starting to come around. I'll keep working on him."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You're very welcome, Edward. I'm proud of you for being able to see Bella's beauty."

I nodded. Truth is, I was kind of proud of myself for that too. "Stir fry's done," I said, relieved to have finished the conversation, though also glad to have this new understanding of my father.

Then, seeing my Mom standing at the sink, watching me with her usual loving compassion, I spontaneously added "Thanks for understanding," softly, almost under my breath, as I turned to move the stir fry to the countertop.

"You're very welcome, Edward," she repeated as she rose up and kissed my cheek, "and it's my job; a job I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, just like I wouldn't trade you." Then, leaning back against the sink and smiling at me, she cheerfully added, "And I can't wait to have Bella as a daughter-in-law."

"Maybe I should ask her out on a date first before we start making marriage plans, Mom."

"And miss all the fun of anticipation? I don't think so, sweetheart. Besides, Bella doesn't date."

The noisy arrival of my snow-covered siblings ended our conversation, and I didn't have time to agree with my mother on her insight, but she was right. Which fact I thought about all that night, and on the trip back to Forks, (when I wasn't thinking about my dad's wounded psyche), while trying to figure out what Bella did instead of dating.

I finally concluded that Isabella didn't date because she had no standards. She wouldn't try people out, any more than she wanted to try clothes on. She just took what was in front of her, and made the best of it, and saw the beauty in the ugliest cast-off thing.

Just as I caught myself thinking that she was lucky I was the one to express interest in her first, because she could have been stuck with any sort of abusive cretin, a small voice inside reminded me I was even luckier. There was nothing I could do that she wouldn't forgive, and there was no part of me she couldn't love. Surely there was something wrong with her for this to be true, but as long as I vowed to protect her from the world, and not to hurt her again through my own actions, I didn't really want to fix it.

And I still don't, which I realized once more as I was coming to the decision that I'd be dropping out of the self-study program and re-joining Isabella in STD central. Relieved to have decided that and happily anticipating the resolution of the current frustrating separation from her, I rounded the last corner to the counselor's office where the researcher was conducting his intake interviews that afternoon.

I was cheerfully anticipating being able to tell him to fuck off, and eat his consent form while he was at it, as I knocked on the counseling office door.

Immediately I heard a man's friendly voice responding, "Come in."

"Ah, Edward Cullen I presume?" the man asked as I walked into the office.

"Yes, that's me," I affirmed as I gave the middle-aged man in front of me a once-over, then drew in breath to inform him he wouldn't be having me in his study any longer.

He beat me to speaking, however, and said "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

This threw me. Why for Christ's sake would he give a flying fuck about meeting a high school kid? That was weird, and what wasn't weird about it was creepy.

"Well, now you have," I responded, allowing my discomfort with his over-friendliness to shine through. Then, with relish, I continued, "But this is it for us, because I'm declining participation in your study and going to stick it out in regular bio class instead. Thanks anyway," I offered, conciliatorily; I was happy enough to be about to return to Bella to be conciliatory with the poor slob in front of me. Now, _his_ mid-life crisis was going to be ugly.

The man didn't react with any surprise, just tilted his head and studied me a little longer. Upping the creepy factor quite considerably. I was just about to say "Okay then," and let myself back out the door, when he asked, "Would this have gone differently if I had called Isabella out with you?"

My eyebrows shot up. This guy had raced past creepy and just flung himself head-first into none-of-his-fucking-business. "I beg your pardon," was all I said back, using my most glacial Esme Platt Cullen high-society cut-you-down-to-size inflection (she was perfectly capable of using this tone, as I had witnessed more than once. She just chose different targets than the violently-entitled high-society bitches you usually hear speaking like that—like violently-entitled high-society bitches, for example). Then I followed with, "I'll be going back to class now," and turned on my heels to get the hell out of there.

"I could help you with her, you know," the creepy bastard said to my back. I froze, my hand on the door handle.

I didn't even turn to look at him, but I couldn't keep from asking, "What the fuck do you mean by that?"

"Just what I said," he responded mildly.

There was silence as I stood there, hand still on the handle, but some part of me unwilling to turn it. I mean, I wanted the hell out of there, and was violently angry with the presumptuous prick acting like he knew the first thing about me, let alone about me and Bella. But…there was something about the confidence in his statement that he could help me. With her. I'm not one to ever ask for help; my pride wouldn't allow it even if my overcompetence ever made it necessary, which it hasn't.

Up until now. Now was different, because it wasn't just me at stake. It was Isabella. And though I hadn't admitted it to anyone else, even to my mother in our heart-to-heart, I had admitted to myself that I was scared. Scared of hurting her, scared about how much I'd hurt her already. So for her, and only for her, I did something I'd never done before in my life, that I could remember: I backed down.

Taking my hand off the handle, I turned slowly around, crossed my arms across my chest, and said, "I'm listening."

He didn't seem perturbed the least by my stance; just nodded his head and resumed talking in his friendly—overly-friendly, in my opinion at the moment-manner. As if he either didn't feel the death glare I was directing at him, or was immune to it.

"I'm glad to have your attention a little while longer. I can see you don't suffer fools gladly, which is no less than I expected from you based on your survey results. You have a very unique profile."

I was both disappointed and relieved. I didn't give a fuck about profiles; there was nothing here to help me. "Well, Mr. …" I paused, pointedly, as the man hadn't even had the social graces to introduce himself to me yet.

He jumped in, though not seeming fazed at all by my pointing out of his lapse in manners, and said, "I'm Robert Morris, Dr. Robert Morris officially, but you can call me Bob."

I refrained, just barely, from snorting. Bob it was.

"Well, Bob," I said, emphasizing his milquetoast name that so perfectly matched his milquetoast appearance, though perhaps not his passive-aggressive attitude, "I don't give a damn about what my profile is, and if that's all you have to share with me, I'll be going."

This time I got the door handle turned and had the door opening as he responded, "It's not your profile alone that's so interesting, though it is interesting. It's the fit between your profile and hers."

Getting angry at having to pause again, I half-turned towards him and said, spitting it out, "Whose?"

"Isabella Swan's, of course. But I can't say any more with the door open."

I was livid. Part of me was just burning to hurl through the door and slam it behind me, though I don't usually descend to acts of physical violence to make my points. That was low-brow, and normally unnecessary for someone as capable of verbal violence as I am.

But another part of me, a part that I was hearing more and more from since Isabella wandered into my life, that part was determined to know what this man thought _he_ knew about her. I mean, for all I knew, he could be after her somehow. He seemed just creepy enough to pursue someone he'd identified through a high-school survey; well, maybe I didn't have enough information to make that damning of a judgment yet. But I had to find out more. Isabella's well-being demanded it.

So I backed down _again_, for the second time in as many minutes, and closed the door, turning around as I did so to stare at Bob. "All right, the door is closed. Now tell me why I should spend another minute in your presence."

He nodded, and for the first time my opinion of him rose. He seemed totally unfazed by my rudeness to him, but he also wasn't returning it in kind. It bothered me, his calm response to my aggression, but I had to admit it bothered me more for what it said about my own character than about his. So now I was even more pissed, but I still tried hard to listen.

"As you know, I'm directing the Human Sexuality Self-Study pilot program at Forks this spring. And part of the innovation of this program is our use of a new screening tool based on a more modern understanding of sexuality. Frankly, it's a bit under-handed of us, because I'm sure members of your school board would shit a brick if they knew some of the specifics of what these questions are designed to tease out. But in general terms, the idea is to empower young people with a clearer understanding of their own sexuality so that they can better make safe and healthy decisions, and that part is an easy sell."

I was finding it easier to listen. I was almost finding myself interested, and that bothered me. But I nodded my head as he paused, looking at me, giving him my permission to go on or acknowledging my comprehension of what he said, he could take his pick. Anyway, I nodded, and he continued.

"So, one of the specific sub-scales is supposed to measure an under-researched aspect of global personality development. You and Isabella Swan scored at opposing ends of this spectrum; you had the highest score possible, and she had the lowest. So if this measure is remotely valid, it tells us that you and she are highly complementary on a rather unique aspect of your sexual identities, and your personalities in general."

I raised my eyebrows at his psych double-talk. I didn't need a survey to tell that she and I were complete opposites. So it was a sarcastic question when I asked next, "Which personality aspect would that be?"

"Profound dominance; or in her case, profound submission."

There was a pause as I stared at him, then blinked.

A heartbeat or two later, and I laughed to cover the visceral reaction I had to his statement. Resorting to my stereotypical and movie-fed knowledge of dominance and submission as aspects of the BDSM subculture, I made a joke of his statement with "I'm sorry to disappoint you, _Bob_, but I don't like leather. It chafes."

Bob was not perturbed, but continued calmly in an instructional tone, "This has nothing to do with leather, or really with any of the specific surface trappings of the BDSM lifestyle. Interest of that nature is covered in the fetish and exhibition subscales, on which both of you had low scores. Meaning you're not into extreme or unusual sexual behaviors, including formal role-playing, as a way of reaching sexual and spiritual satisfaction."

Bob wasn't kidding when he said that school-board members would shit a brick if they knew their students were taking a survey with a fetish subscale. I grudgingly decided I liked Bob just a little bit, based on the sheer size of his balls—and I'm man enough and confident in my heterosexuality enough to say that, knowing that my admiration is strictly metaphorical.

But I wasn't letting him off the hook. "So why use those words then? Surely they're inflammatory if you have no intention of implying an interest in kinky sex?"

Bob actually laughed, the asshole. "Oh, I have no doubt that you'd enjoy kinky sex, Edward, providing it was kinky sex that you had complete control of, with a partner you had complete control of as well."

Damn it, I think I was blushing. Totally unmanned by his unexpected and highly-accurate attack, I defended as best I could, wielding sarcasm as an admittedly blunt and sadly ineffective tool. "So your test had me scoring high on kinky sex, then? Don't I get some sort of acknowledgement, a prize, for my high score? A riding crop, maybe?"

Bob's look lost the humor, and morphed into the sort of compassionate affection I was used to seeing on Esme's face. Which pissed me off. He has no claim on me.

The rage radiating his direction didn't seem to faze him, however, because he responded gently, "I already told you, Edward. Your score on the fetish subscale was next-to-nothing."

"Then your test's fucked up, because you just assured me how much I'll enjoy kinky sex—or are you making promises you have no idea how to live up to?"

"Forgive me, Edward. I'm using terms defined in very precise, research-focused ways, and you have not been made privy to those definitions. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

"I'm not uncomfortable!" I shouted, past feeling embarrassed at how distressed I was acting. "I'm pissed!"

Bob nodded. "I can see that, and rightfully so. I was worried about that happening as I tried to explain this to you, and I was right. I wish I could assure you that my intentions are nothing but honorable here."

"I don't know, Bob; it all seems a bit too voyeuristic to be honorable."

"Fair point, Edward. It is. Voyeuristic, that is. Any researcher who doesn't confess a marked and intensely satisfying interest in his topic is lying, or a very bad researcher. I _am _a voyeur here, but I assure you not in anything but an intellectual sense. Unlike you, my sexuality is highly conventional. Almost depressingly so," he added with a grin, and the bastard made me like him just a little more.

"Anyway, I'm hoping that, despite acknowledging my interest in getting to know and understand you and Isabella more, that I can still act honorably towards you both as well, by sharing my knowledge and perspective as you figure out your relationship together.

"Our relationship?" I was incredulous.

"Word in the teachers' lounge is that you've been looking after her since she arrived in Forks this fall. They all find it very sweet, by the way, if a bit incomprehensible from your end."

I moved my feet, crossing one leg over the other as I leaned back against the door; considering. Finally I said, with some assurance, which surprised me, "But you don't. Find it incomprehensible, I mean."

"No, Edward, I don't. From my view, it makes all the sense in the world. And as lucky as I can see she is [I snorted at this, remembering how badly I had hurt her already] to have found you, or to have been found by you, which would be more accurate, wouldn't it? Well, I can also see your good fortune in finding her. Maybe more than you are even able to realize yet."

My head shot up from the position it had descended to at the memory of hurting Isabella, and I stared in that man's eyes, searching for any sign of dishonesty or cruel humor. There was nothing there but more compassion, and the interest he had admitted already. I felt something I rarely had the need for stir in my chest; if it hadn't been for all my reading of the classics, I might not even have recognized it for what it was: hope.

Silence descended again, but I was in no hurry to break it this time. Sticking my hands in my pockets, I leaned my head against the door and stared at Bob, evaluating him again, a little more thoroughly this time. He did the same, his hands in his pockets too, his position half-sitting against the front of the counselor's desk.

He was the one to break the silence. "So am I going to get to meet Isabella?"

"That depends."

"I should hope so. What does it depend on?"

"What you have to offer me, or her, or us."

"Fair enough, Edward. Here's what I propose. I tutor you on the intellectual specifics of what psychological science knows so far about the profound dominance and submission spectrum, and offer you my best advice on how to translate that information into taking good care of Isabella."

I stared at him some more, not sure I could believe I was hearing an adult authority figure talking about me caring for her as if it was a given, rather than an outrageous and completely unacceptable idea.

He seemed to sense what I was thinking, which if I hadn't given up on seeing him as the enemy, would have been the crowning creepiness to a very disturbing interaction. No one usually has a clue as to what I'm thinking, and I like it that way. Still, there Bob was, asking, "Does it surprise you, hearing me acknowledge that you take care of her?"

Feeling more like a truculent adolescent than ever before in my life, I responded, in a surly and challenging tone, "Maybe."

"I can understand why. It's not a very popular position, acknowledging that some seemingly-normal people need caring for, or will not be able to survive, or to survive without much suffering."

At that last word, I lost all truculence, and any sense of being an adolescent. I was a grown man, with a girl who _was_ suffering (and whom I had made suffer) right in front of me, and I didn'tknow what to do about it. Or at least, I didn't know how to make my vague impulses real, in such a way that her father would allow her to continue to be around me, and my father would do the same. Shit, I needed this bastard's help. I couldn't say that though, so instead, I just nodded.

It was enough. Bob seemed to see it as complete agreement to participate with him in his crazy plan, and if I didn't see clearly how it was as crazy on his part—with his professional reputation and livelihood at stake if I chose to rat him out as far as the nature of his conversation with me—even more than on mine, then I wouldn't have trusted him. But I saw it all, including, more clearly than ever before, how much Isabella's well-being depended on me finally getting things right with her.

Bob went straight there too. "So, how do you want to bring her into this?"

Later on and looking back, I would be surprised at how instantly everything fell into place in that moment. From experiencing more uncertainty in the past few minutes than I had ever before, I shifted to laser-like intensity and absolute clarity in my strategizing about what to do next with Isabella. With my girl.

Checking my watch, I stood up as I said, "I have to get back quickly before she runs off to gym. Are you open next period?"

Dr. Morris—Bob—nodded, but said, "Maybe it would be better to work out a general strategy, just the two of us, before involving her?"

I shook my head easily "No" at that. Explaining, I said "She signed up for the self-study option, I presume?"

Bob nodded his head in agreement.

"Then she's sitting there right now wondering what's wrong with her that she wasn't called out to participate. That's the assumption she'll make—that there's something wrong with her, or that she's done something awful to cause her exclusion, and I'm not willing to let her go on feeling that way a moment longer than necessary."

A smile grew on his face as Bob nodded his agreement with my plan. "See? I have so much to learn from you Edward." My eyebrows went up but he went on, seemingly completely serious, and genuine. " _Of course_ that's how she's feeling; her shame scale was through the roof." I shuddered to think about the numbers associated with her shame as he continued, "But I don't have the intuitive understanding you do, so it would have taken me seeing her shame after the fact to understand the right action to take now."

Bob then stepped away from his desk and towards me a little, saying earnestly, "But I promise you, Edward, I'm a quick study, and I'll start looking ahead better for both of you." I smiled at him, and nodded, actually believing him, and glad of it.

Bob smiled back, and relaxed against the desk again. He laughed, and said, "Honestly, I was so worried about my interaction with you, I hadn't managed to think things through far enough to get to Isabella."

I grinned, feeling more like myself than at any time since I'd entered the office. "I had you worried, hunh?"

"Extremely. Unable to eat, and everything."

"Don't you trust me, Bob?" I asked, genuinely curious about how he could make himself so vulnerable to me without absolute confidence that I wasn't a shithead who would use it as leverage against him, or merely as entertainment for myself.

"Of course I do, Edward. Your integrity score was quite solid, excepting of course your lie scale on the sexual experience questions."

"You caught that?"

"I hate to tell you, Edward, but a kindergartner could have caught that. I'm not sure I've met a 17-year-old, who wasn't a victim of the sex trade or of heinous abuse, who had more than 20 sexual partners."

I winced. I hadn't thought about that angle. "I guess that was overkill," I admitted a little sheepishly, ashamed to have so obviously taken for granted my life-long safety from the horrors of abuse and exploitation. Regaining my confidence, I said more aggressively, "I wasn't going to tell the truth, though, because it's none of your god-damn business." I said the last bit with humor too, though meaning every word of it, and trusted him not to take offense.

He didn't. Instead he laughed, then got serious and said, "I have to thank you for trusting me, Edward. Trusting me with her."

This sobered me up too. I stared at him, a warning glare, and he got it.

"I know. I won't fuck up, and if I do, I won't rest until I put it right."

I nodded. I would accept this promise from Bob the researcher. It was better than my other options; it might actually be good. And in my surprise at how…_hopeful_ I was feeling about accepting someone else's help with the most personal undertaking I'd ever even contemplated, I actually said, "And you'll help me not to fuck up too, right?"

I winced after I heard the words come out of my mouth, at how needy they sounded, but Bob just agreed. "Absolutely, Edward. That's what I'm here for."

Moving out of that uncomfortable moment as fast as I could, I said, "Thanks. I'll go get Bella." And before he had a chance to say anything more, I was out the door and off to collect my girl.

Grinning like mad, I chose to focus on the joy of the moment, rather than reflecting on the pain of her waiting past, as I ravenously anticipated her willingness to follow me wherever I wanted to go.

She'd always been willing, I realized as I walked across the snowy courtyard to the science building where she sat, waiting for me. I was the one who had hesitated, marking time with her until I could get my head out of my ass and find a fucking map. _Well, I've got one now, baby girl, and I'm coming for you_, I thought as I took the stairs up to the science building three at a time and breezed through the door.

Only a hallway away now. I walked with strength and speed, willing her to sense me coming for her—and grinning even more at all the deliciously-dirty and now seemingly-possible thoughts that thought engendered. _Just hold on a few more seconds, Isabella—I'm almost there._

And then, there she was, huddled in the back and visible to me through the window in the classroom door. I stopped, ready to enter but waiting—just waiting—until she saw me, and I could see her, reading the intention in my eyes the way I knew she would.

It didn't take long. A couple seconds, no more, and her head was slowly rising, her eyes lifting up…up…until they lit on mine. I almost started backwards with the force of her eyes, the hope and uncertainty and shame in them, and most of all, the trust in me.

A split-second, no more, was all the chance I had to radiate back my aggressive love and intention—no, my absolute determination—to make her feel that love in every cell of her body, and every deep, despondent corner of her desperate brain.

I knew I'd succeeded, or at least made a good start, when her head dropped as her cheeks flooded with color and her trembling arms—I couldn't see the tremors but I knew they were there—wrapped around her body, holding herself together while she waited for me.

_Good girl,_ I thought as I opened the door and walked in, closing it behind me again with a decisive click. My eyes moved to Mr. Banner as I approached where he was standing, but my mind only saw Bella, cowering at our table, waiting for me.

And all I could think was, _That's my good girl; that's my Isabella._


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated, but I'm still here! I feel like singing it out on top of a piano, like Shirley MacLaine in her musical number in the movie ****_Postcards from the Edge_****. Shirley's take had angry overtones—but then it's rational to be angry as an aging woman in a youth-obsessed and male-centric culture. I think my version would be more grateful-sounding, and very surprised. What? I'm still here? You're kidding!**

**But here I am, with not a whole lot of thanks to me. Although I've managed not to kill myself yet, so that's something. And also a reminder of one of the keys to happiness: low expectations. They're your friend. **

**I am also trying to be your friend, albeit a one-way and internet-mediated one incapable of baking you cookies, by passing along what I learn the hard way, in case it be of interest or use to you. Probably, you've figured this all out long ago, but in case you're emotionally bleeding in the dark like I have been (not nearly as romantic an image as dancing in the dark, is it), here's my latest discovery.**

**It is very important, when in despair, not to also allow in the feeling of ****_shame_**** over being in despair. This is tricky (TRICKY!), in part because the despair no doubt contains shame to begin with—otherwise, it would most likely be regret of a more manageable nature. Leaving that issue aside for the moment, it is so easy to assume that just because you ****_feel_**** ashamed over falling apart/being depressed/experiencing grief that is unexpected in strength or duration, that your actions are shameful—but that is a false assumption! That shame over your emotional experience doesn't belong to you, but comes from the outside world internalized, and is a reflection of the intolerance for strong emotion or vulnerability that our culture has. You feel shame because you know that's what society is telling you to feel (even when its surface-level words are different), but that is not the same as shame generated within by a misfit between your actions and your values. **

**Indeed, unless your values are the same as the mainstream culture's, you probably are closer to your own values in feeling what you feel than if you didn't feel those things so strongly. So reject the culturally-generated and oppressive shame, and recognize the feelings of worthlessness and the need for self-destruction for what they are: more signs of the mismatch between you and the cultural milieu, and not an objective report on your worth as a person. **

**That was a repeat, here's the new material: even while rejecting the shame, it may be and probably is necessary and desirable not to stay stuck in the pain indefinitely. The shame would try to cut your feelings short by saying "Yes, ****_but_****" to your experience: "Yes, you feel sad/depressed/suicidal, ****_but_**** it's really not so bad/you're blowing it out of proportion/there's so much to be grateful for/you really need to get over it." This, of course, leads to more shame, and good luck getting out of the pain that way. **

**Instead, say "Yes, ****_and_****" to your suffering: "Yes, I hurt more than I can bear, ****_and_**** there are still people who could use my help/need me/will suffer if I don't act, or if I disappear in the pain." Or, "Yes, I cannot go on, ****_and_**** there are children/clients/friends/family/neighbors/people/animals counting on me." Putting it this way highlights the choices, the impossibly-hard choices, we are continually making in our lives, and underscores both the courage in going on when it feels so impossible and the reason for suffering more than we feel we can stand. We hurt, and we are needed; we want to hide away, and we are called out into the daily conflict of human existence. All of this is true, simultaneously, and the miracle of love is enacted again every time—every moment—we choose to move forward and reach out and act in care and compassion, when we so desperately just want to run away.**

**Of course, it remains important to forgive yourself—FORGIVE YOURSELF—for all the moments you do run away and hide.**

**This weekend I felt—no I FEEELLLTTTTT the aloneness of my new life. There is no one to turn to, there is no role model or life partner to cling to; even friends are few and far between and very, very difficult to access. There is only me, and God, and whoever is around me in the moment. **

**Fortunately, the boys (my sons) have been so lovely to be around lately; both because of themselves, and because of my heightened awareness of the tenuousness of this existence, the brevity of our time together. I am so blessed, and I can still say that, and mean it, coming off a weekend of debating my continued existence. I am so lucky! I can make it, I can make it, ("I think I can, I think I can…"—I'm the Little Engine That Could on good days, and the sad, tired old engine on bad), and I can spread some love while I'm at it. Which is my definition of making it, after all.**

**So…poor Bella is in desperate pain in her life, and doesn't believe at all that she will make it, and hurts so badly and doesn't understand why, and knows Charlie and Renee and Phil and everyone else don't understand why either, and are quite exasperated by her difficulties. She is so ashamed, and it is so hard to go on. **

**And then there's Edward—with his crazy intense possibilities and the equally (maybe more so) crazy pain of his disappointing her by never following through with what he seems to be promising. She must be making it up, she must have misunderstood—right? No, Bella, no; you see him clearly, as well as what he wants to offer you, but he's scared. Only ****_that's_**** about to change as he gains an unexpected ally, and a more complete understanding of how much you hurt…so just hang on.**

XXXXXX

I knew today was going to be difficult the second I opened my eyes, and found the half-light of a winter dawn to be even darker than usual. It was overcast, of course; just like my mood. Not even the music in my truck helped, even for a moment, as I drove, a little too fast on the icy roads on my way to school. I was attempting to make up for time lost just sitting at the kitchen table, uneaten cereal in front of me, trying to imagine a way out of the pain of my life and coming up blank. Totally empty. I feel scared about that.

Usually, I have an escapist fantasy playing in the background most of the time. This fall, before November, they all featured…well, they all featured someone it isn't safe to even think about any more. And then, when THAT happened, when he just…disappeared; well, I went back to old fantasies, fast.

Like the one where Jacob's family adopts me, and I'm beautiful, just like his sisters, and his mom (she's still alive in my fantasy world) brushes and braids my hair, just like she used to do for her girls. And all their cousins and friends come over, especially the big, male ones, and I feel safe, and protected—instead of intensely uncomfortable like I usually do in reality. Because I BELONG, and they want me there.

I think that's why I hate going with Charlie so much to visit at Billy's: the difference between the reality and my fantasy is just too depressing, and it makes it harder to hold on to the dream. And dreams are crucial.

I feel scared and embarrassed sometimes, imagining what people would think if they knew how much time I spent in daydreams, imagining being loved; feeling safe. I spend whole weekends in my bed, not sleeping—like Charlie thinks I am—but dreaming about being held, and sometimes even about running away only to be brought back by strong, loving arms that make sure I never get the chance to run away again.

See? I told you. Humiliating.

But lately I've been losing the ability to escape like that, and it scares me, how alone and, and unprotected, I feel. At least…at least at school, Ed—that person's back, and even though I try really hard not to think about him, or look for him, or even look at him when he's right in front of me, he helps me sometimes, like he used to. It doesn't feel as good as before, because I know he doesn't really mean it.

No, he's just being nice, but that's okay. It's so much better than nothing. It's a million times better than nothing. Especially in biology, when he's sitting next to me, and touching me again.

At first, when he was just back from Chicago or wherever he was while he was gone, (Alice tried to explain it to me, but I couldn't bear to really listen—something about old friends, and a trip to London), I thought I would die when he reached across the lab table and gently took my wrist in his hand, not saying a word or even looking at me. My heart felt like it was going to explode right out of my chest, and my lungs were bursting with the desire to scream, and it wasn't just a happy scream, but anger and misery and frustration too. How could he come back like he hadn't left me, totally and completely, with not even a word of good-bye?

I even thought, briefly, about yanking my arm away. It wasn't that I blamed him for leaving; not really. It wasn't even that it didn't feel just as good as ever, being held by him that way. It was just that I didn't think I could handle losing him again, and since he isn't really mine to begin with, that's kind of inevitable. And a recipe for self-destruction, letting myself depend on him again.

I know this, I knew it then and I know it now, but I haven't been able to stop myself. Even that first day he was back, when all of whatever pride I have inside was on alert and screaming out, "Don't take his pity, Isabella Marie Swan! Don't do it!" I couldn't pull my arm away, any more than I could cut it off. Actually, I think I could cut it off more easily than remove it from Edward Cullen's touch.

I did manage not to melt in to him though, at least at first; I was kind of proud of myself for that. And I didn't even cry, at least not right away.

I think that surprised him—my lack of reaction—because eventually, I felt him staring at me, while I felt his touch burning my skin. But I just held myself, so rigid and unyielding, and refused to look his way. _You will not cry; you will not cry_; was all I let myself think, and it worked.

At least, it worked until Mr. Banner wheeled in the ancient tv/vcr cart and put in a movie on tapeworms, then turned off the lights. I jumped in my seat when the lights went off, which was stupid, and made me mad because HE laughed. That light, little laugh he uses when I amuse him somehow, which used to make me feel so good and warm inside, but now cuts like a jagged blade because I know there is more humor than affection in it. At least there's some affection in there still.

I know _that_ because he's never ratted me out, that I can tell, on what happened next. Despite all my inner shouting and valiant attempts to stay rigid and uncaring and in my own space, when the lights went off and he transferred my wrist from one hand to another, then circled my shoulders with his whole arm and drew me into his side as his foot hooked around the rung of my lab stool and dragged me across the floor towards him, I just…I just…I just broke. I caved in; I fell apart; I lost control. As soon as his arm went around me, and his warm body was so near me, the tears started coming, faster and faster, and before I could even think I had my arms around his waist and was sobbing, face-first, into his chest. Oh, it was so humiliating! And absolutely, completely, entirely blissful.

And Edward didn't even seem to mind, but kind of encouraged me, whispering these things in my ear that I cannot let myself repeat or even think about, but that made me feel so safe, and loved, and _right_ again, for the first time since he'd been gone. I'd only known that feeling, for real, since Edward Cullen had come into my life, but I got addicted to it so fast, it was like a drug.

And when he left, so fast, I was like an addict in withdrawal, only no rehab program on earth would have taken me in, no one would have believed how desperate I could feel over the loss of a, just a, a friend—and not even a close one at that. I had no claim on Edward Cullen, but he absolutely owned me, still. If only he knew, and wanted it like that; if only he wanted me.

But he doesn't, and I know he saw old girlfriends in Chicago (because I hear people like Conner and Tyler loudly asking him about it, and watch as Lauren and Jessica get mad as he tells them whatever they, like me, so don't want to hear). And I know, dear God I KNOW that I am nothing to him, nothing more than a silly girl that he is kind to once in a while.

So I wish I could tell him he doesn't have to do that anymore; I wish that instead of soaking up every second he chooses to be near me I could walk away myself instead.

I've tried, and even succeeded a couple of times before Christmas. I think I even hurt his feelings once. I didn't mean to do that, and I feel badly about it; I even tried to apologize, but he wouldn't listen. So I'm probably wrong. As if I'd have the power to hurt Edward Cullen's feelings, right?

Here's what happened. There's this awful Forks High tradition, at the end of every fall, winter and spring, of having an assembly and pep rally to celebrate the accomplishments of all the teams that played that season. First the principal announces any championship wins (it doesn't take long, as none of our sports teams are very good, although Edward's soccer team did go to state this year and the girls' volleyball team did too), and then introduces the season's coaches, who read off the names of the players, calling them down to the gym floor and talking about any special achievements or awards the players received. It takes forever, and everyone is bored to tears.

But then they have the pep rally part, and that's when I want to run away. I guess I can see why most students like it, because they blast dance music—some silly pop song that the adults think is popular in the moment—and all the players on the gym floor get to pair off, or go into the stands and pick someone to dance with them. It's a major popularity contest/showing-off opportunity, of course—maybe even more than Homecoming or Prom, because the whole school is there for it, and there's a spontaneous quality to it that has led to some famous-in-the-hallways-of-Forks-High relationship endings, and beginnings.

I find it all rather brutal and scary, and would much prefer being far, far away. But that's considered skipping, so there I was early last December, the Friday after Edward had returned, bracing myself as the loud music came on and the chaos of moving bodies and squealing girls and laughing boys and just noise started. I had been paying attention to Edward, kind of by accident, although I know part of me was really curious who he would pick to dance with, as much as another part of me didn't want to know.

But Angela was down on the floor too as part of the girls' volleyball team, and I knew she was really worried about whether she should ask Ben Cheney (a soccer player like Edward) to dance with her. The prospect of him turning her down, in front of everyone, was her worst nightmare, but it was such a good opportunity to let him know she was interested in him she didn't want to pass it by either. So I was torn as the music came blasting over the speakers between wanting to see whom Edward picked, and wanting to be a good friend and see what Angela chose to do, not to mention wanting to close my eyes until the whole mess was over.

I had settled on watching Angela, my fingers crossed and my breath held, as she approached Ben Cheney and shyly leaned in to ask him, and though he looked really surprised, Thank Goodness! he smiled at her and took her hand and walked with her over to where some couples were already dancing.

I felt so happy for Angela I had forgotten all about Edward when Jessica, who was sitting in the second row of the juniors' section of bleachers, turned around and called up to me, "Bella! Edward Cullen's waving at you!"

Shocked, I raised my head and saw: Edward, standing on the gym floor in front of the bleachers, staring straight at me. When my eyes met his, he smiled, and mouthed the words, "Come here," while beckoning me down with two of his fingers. It was very understated, it was very self-assured; it was very Edward.

And what happened next was very me. First of all, I of course turned around to see who he was talking to. I only saw the legs of Eric Yorkie and his friends, however, and the two rows in front of me were turning around to look at me, as I discovered when I turned back towards the front.

With relief, I also saw that Edward had moved away in the meantime…though the relief vanished when I caught sight of movement up the staircase to the right of me and found Edward ascending towards my row.

I can't explain what I did next, except to say I panicked. I know I didn't think about it, and I didn't weigh my options. I just stood up and uncharacteristically pushed my way, apologizing all around, to the staircase on my left, and flew down it, bumping into a few bodies on my way. Then, deaf to everything and everyone, I ran out of the gym, and didn't stop running until I was out of the building and into the hall where my locker was.

I tore into the girls' restroom then, locking myself into a stall and standing there, my shoulders heaving, panic still coursing through my veins, until my breathing slowed, and I could exit and grab my things before the rest of the school descended. I had just made my get-away out of the parking lot when the gymnasium doors opened and students came flooding out.

I didn't answer the phone that night, though it rang several times.

The next day was Saturday, and I met Angela at the library to study, as we had planned earlier in the week. I was determined to pretend that the whole episode—whatever it was—with Edward had never happened, and was just excited to hear how the dance had gone with Ben. I felt a little guilty that I hadn't stayed around to see for myself, but I was pretty sure Angela wouldn't hold it against me.

She didn't, but she did look at me kind of strangely at first, and asked about what had happened with Edward. I said I didn't know what she was talking about, and I had just left the pep rally because I felt sick.

"That's not what I heard from Jessica," Angela said gently. "Or from my sister."

"Your sister?" I asked, surprised that her little sister Maria would have been gossiping to her about me.

"Edward Cullen asked her to dance yesterday," Angela said, a big-sisterly smile of pride on her face.

"Edward Cullen asked Maria to dance?" I was shocked, because Maria is a freshman, and though a good student and very kind, no more popular than her big sister is. And a lot more awkward, given her age.

Angela laughed. "Yeah, it was so sweet of him. After you tore out of the auditorium, Jessica said Edward looked really surprised, and kind of hurt. And then he walked over to the freshmen and asked Maria to dance. Jessica was quite upset about that, as you might imagine."

"Why was Edward hurt?" I asked, not able to laugh with Angela yet.

Angela looked at me disbelievingly, like I wasn't who she thought I was. It made me feel very uncomfortable. And reminded me of some equally-uncomfortable conversations with Alice, whom I've been avoiding for weeks. "Um, because you ran out on him, Bella?" she said finally.

I felt panicked. It was a familiar sensation. "But—he didn't; I mean he wasn't asking me to dance; he was just saying 'Hi!' And I didn't run _out_ on him, I just didn't feel good. I didn't mean—"

"Bella," Angela interrupted, "it's okay. Don't worry about it. It's no big deal. I'm sure Edward knows you would never mean to hurt his feelings. It's just; well, I guess I'm a little surprised. I mean, well, I thought you _liked_ him?"

I stared at her, speechless. I didn't just _like_ Edward; I l—well, I more than liked him. A lot more. But I can't admit that to myself, let alone to someone else, even to someone as kind and trustworthy as Angela.

After a few moments, Angela smiled at me and just moved on, and I let her. "Well, it was an interesting day. Do you know what Ben said?"

And we were off on a much safer, and happier topic. Gratefully, I listened and responded with enthusiasm the rest of the afternoon to the beginning of Angela's hopefully happy teenage love affair.

But that night…oh, that night, I writhed in shame to think that I had maybe missed my one opportunity to _be_ something to Edward Cullen. And I had only myself to blame. My stupid, lousy, crappy, awful self and my lack of any self-confidence, or social ability, whatsoever. I hated myself so badly that night, I thought more seriously than I had in a long time—since I'd been in Forks—about…well, about killing myself.

Debating the likely pain and success probability of various approaches got me through the night, and somehow Sunday passed too—and then it was Monday, and I was back at school, trying not to cry, trying not to feel like my inadequacy as a person was on display for the entire high school to see.

I walked to my locker like I was being led to my execution, but surprisingly I managed not to cry. That changed when the one person I was most trying to avoid at the same time I was most desperately hoping would appear came and stood next to me as I opened my locker door.

Edward spoke first, though I knew he was there, and had frozen in fear at what he might say. He only got out "Bella," though, before I turned and faced his chest and said, so quickly,

"Edward! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to be rude, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! I'm so sorry! Please forgive—"

There, he interrupted, and leaning in to me and putting a hand on my shoulder, said much less tentatively than he had spoken my name, "Hey, _I'm_ sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I should have known you wouldn't have liked that."

"No, it's my fault! It was so nice of you—"

"Bella. Breathe."

And I tried, but it came out kind of a sob, and right there in front of my locker, Edward Cullen put one arm around me and drew me into his chest for a hug. I was stiff, shocked and not wanting to look desperate, even though I was, and am. So I didn't hug him back, but sort of hugged myself instead, while Edward kept his arm around me, and bent his head down towards mine, and said kind things.

Things like, "There's nothing to be upset about, Bella. Nothing's been hurt. We're still friends. I'm still going to—I'm still watching out for you. I'll always do that. We'll sit together next assembly, okay? I don't play any winter sports, and we can make fun of the dancing together. You should have seen Emmett out there; it was hysterical. But Rosalie was _pissed_. Or at least she acted like she was. I think she kind of liked it. There, that got a smile, right?"

And it did, and then the bell rang, and he pulled his arm away, kind of slowly like he was testing to make sure I'd hold it together when he stopped touching me, and I did, and he smiled at me, a big one, like normal, and winked and said, "There's my girl," before reaching out and touching my cheek with one finger, then turning and walking down the hall back to his own locker. Turning his head back over his shoulder, he reminded me, "Get moving. I'll see you in Varner's room," and all was right with my world again.

Which is why I was kind of hoping—okay more than kind of; maybe more like desperately wishing and almost imagining…all right, no almost about it, _totally_ imagining that we would be paired together in the human sexuality self-study project that starts today, the same way we are for biology lab. I mean, I know it's kind of ridiculous to think they'd allow a girl and a boy to be sex-ed partners, but I guess I thought because it was Edward, and me, they'd see there wasn't any harm that could possibly come of it. All the other lab partner pairings in our class are same-gender, not like ours, but Mr. Banner doesn't seem to mind our being together. So maybe—just maybe—we could be together in the study program too?

That was my hope, anyway, as I walked into the biology classroom with Angela this afternoon. And it was still my hope, down to the very last name on the list. Edward's name—without mine.

I expected it, my name, to be called after his, because everyone else seemed to have a partner already, except for the couple of kids who never participated in anything requiring parental consent… one because his parents were too religious to consent to anything besides extra prayer in school, and the other because his mother was too drunk or high (Charlie was a little talkative sometimes about the people he pulled over for drunk driving, and the drug arrests he made, and so I happened to know she had been arrested for both; although it was also common high school knowledge that his mom had issues) to sign any documents that came her way. I'm sure he forged some signatures, but for the most part, he kept a low profile—probably so that no one would question his situation at home and put him in foster care. I like him; his name is Richard, and he's a loner like me. If I wasn't so afraid of boys, I might even try to talk to him, but I don't; I just try to smile at him when I pass by his desk.

But the hope—my stupid, foolish hope—was fatally crushed when Mr. Banner finally read Edward's name, towards the end of class. Edward's name only. Edward alone. I thought at first maybe I'd missed hearing mine, and turned to look at Edward, but he was staring expectantly at Mr. Banner.

Finally, Mr. Banner asked Edward why he wasn't leaving, and Edward said he was waiting to hear the name of his partner. And some small part of me felt like he meant, he was waiting for me.

But that part got her comeuppance when Mr. Banner said there were no more names on the list, and I realized that I hadn't been included. For some unknown reason, but which I had no doubt had to do with my inadequacy as a human being, and especially as a normally-developing teenager (which I am not), I was not chosen to participate. At all, let alone with Edward.

I felt the blush rise as my head dropped so I could study my notebook, although I couldn't make out a single word with the tears swimming in my eyes. I hardly even noticed Edward standing up and leaving, as he chose to go down the narrow aisle along his end of the lab table rather than pass by me. As I tried not to take that as a rejection, I realized with horror that it might have been Edward himself who arranged not to have to work with me. He might have told the researchers how messed up I was, and how dependent, and how he couldn't stand to have to deal with me anymore than he did already.

This thought was absolutely crushing in its believability, and my shoulders bowed in shame.

I can't account for the next period of time. I know Mr. Banner kept lecturing, although I didn't hear a word he said, just as I know Edward left the room for his meeting, though I couldn't bear to watch him go. I did register the sound of the door closing behind him, and I felt it like a mortal wound.

Which is ridiculous, I know, and I've been telling myself that, over and over. _Stop crying! Get it together! It's not that big a deal. So you're not participating in this research project. What did you think, that it would solve your life's problems? Ease your life's pain? Stupid, stupid girl, grow up!_ Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But it didn't work. So I remained in acute shame and mortification, oblivious to biology and Mr. Banner, trying only to keep from making crying noises out loud.

Until the moment when I felt someone's gaze heavy on me. Without thinking, I raised my head to see who was summoning my attention in that way and found: Edward Cullen staring at me through the window in the biology classroom door. _Edward_ was staring, with a smile on his face and intention in his eyes. At me.

And even as my rational mind was going through the litany of reasons why I shouldn't make anything of this, why it means nothing, how he's just lost in thought and happens to have his eyes pointing my direction, how there's nothing of any value or importance he could possibly have to communicate to me, how irrelevant I am to his life, on and on, my heart was leaping and my soul was soaring, because they both knew—they just knew—that Edward Cullen had come back for me. He'd come back. For me.

It's too much, quickly. This emotion; this dangerous knowledge, or maybe just belief.

So my head snaps down and I'm staring at my notebook, the writing unintelligible once more for the gibberish in my brain and the roaring in my ears and the tears pooling in my eyes. I'm in lockdown, trying not to let the tears fall, when I become aware of a banging sound that puzzles me. It's not too loud, maybe more of a clicking, but it's close by. As my mind focuses on the sound, I realize it's the slightly short leg of my lab stool hitting the floor over and over as my body shakes.

Funny, I hadn't realized I was shaking, but now I find I am; my whole body has tremors as if I'm out in a cold wind with nothing to protect me.

I wrap my arms around my body, as if to warm myself up, but the tremors don't stop, no matter how hard I squeeze. I'm truly feeling cold now too, and I'm just beginning to hope I might actually be sick and able to demonstrate that fact and escape out of here, out of this situation that has just become too much. I'm calculating whether I should interrupt and ask Mr. Banner for a pass to the nurse's office or try to hold out until the end of class when I feel a heavy hand descend on my shoulder. I shriek, and predictably, several other people titter.

My face in flames, I look up into Edward's face looking down, such affection on his face the tears immediately start rolling down. I feel mortified, but not enough to counter the relief I feel looking into his warm eyes. It helps too that Mr. Banner has cleared his throat and gone on with the lesson, as if I'm not having a breakdown in the back of the room. Thank you, God, for Mr. Banner.

Edward hasn't removed his hand, and the weight of it is just growing heavier. His thumb is moving too, gently, in small circles against my shoulder.

Now his arm is going around me, in front of me—not touching, just circling around, with his hand coming to rest on the table to my side, as if he is boxing me in, keeping me safe. I don't feel safe, though—or rather, I feel both extraordinarily safe, and extraordinarily exposed. It's neither, and both simultaneously, and the only thing my inner self can agree on is that I am agitated, and unsure, and overwhelmed. So the shaking gets worse, and the lab stool moves faster, and the tears come stronger, and the noisy sobs are just about to break through when Edward leans down, his cheek just above my cheek, hovering there in the air, just barely not-touching, and says, "Isabella, Sweetheart, listen to me."

The "Sweetheart" does it. He hasn't called me that since—since before, since that night. That night. And all at once I am done, I can't take any more, I can't take the back and forth, I can't take the nearness and then the so-far-away. So I brace all my limbs and am a split-second from bursting up from my seat, pushing past Edward Cullen once and for all and getting out of this insane and constant torture, when…when that self-same Edward Cullen leans in even closer, brings a hand up to my arm, taking careful hold, and says, in a low, breathy voice, "Baby girl, settle down."

No words. No words are left. No breath, no will, no thought; no refuge; no plan. All is an echoing emptiness without sense or implication, and the only feeling I can identify is this faint awareness that I'm about to lose control of my bladder—until, just as I'm about to let go at that last animal level, I hear a stern, masculine voice say "Isabella, look at me."

I can't help it. I snap to, and I look at him. Just for a moment, but it's enough to see him smile at me in return for my unthinking obedience, and it feels like the best exchange I've ever made, or could ever hope to.

I'm back in my own conscious mind now, and my face is on fire, and I'm staring at my hands, and I'm aware of Edward Cullen hovering over and around me, and I don't understand.

"I want you to stand up, and walk out of the room, Isabella," he says, in a low, commanding tone that sends shivers up my spine and raises goosebumps on my flesh. I have no idea why he wants me to do this, but I don't care. It's like an answer to a prayer, being told I have to leave a place and a situation I had urgently wanted out of. And being told like this, by an in-charge Edward Cullen who was focused only on me, and on what I should do? It was a dangerous heaven.

I was losing touch with the dangerous part and sliding only into the heaven as I responded to the tug on one of my hands and the pull on one of my arms and stood up, then started moving forward, leaving my belongings where they lay. I paused, frozen in an unspeakable fear of humiliation, of having misunderstood, of having misheard, after Edward removed his hands from my body, and came to stand behind me. But then a hand descended again, this time on my right hip, and started pushing me forward, and there was a small but definite nudge from his knee into my left leg, so soon I was in motion, head down, eyes staring at the ground in front of me, and skin feeling the eyes of all my classmates crawling all over me.

I was embarrassed enough to try and move away from the hand on my hip. But he wouldn't be shaken, and just tightened his grip.

Half-way to Mr. Banner's desk in front, I heard a wolf-whistle and froze, causing Edward to run into me. With laughter all around us, he leaned in and said urgently, "Don't you dare listen to anyone but me, Isabella."

I wanted to yell at him; how was that possible, when I was going to have to face most of them in gym next period? When he was nowhere around to reassure me, or to intercept their teasing words, or neutralize their knowing looks and mocking actions?

But I couldn't yell, because it was Edward, and because we were surrounded by observers, and because at this point all I really wanted was to get the heck out of that classroom. So I started up again, moving faster this time, and sped-walked towards the door.

Edward stopped me when we were even with Mr. Banner's desk, and turned to say to Mr. Banner, "I'll be back for our things later," which puzzled me. Where would _I_ be? Was I being sent home? Did they trace my answers on the supposedly-anonymous coping-behaviors survey back to me, and read something more incriminating into them than I had intended?

I was interrupted in further worrying by the distraction of Edward pushing me forward again, then his arm around me opening the door, and holding it as we both passed through.

At last, we were out in the hall, and I heard Edward close the door behind us with a decisive "click." I moved to the side, out of view of the window, and felt my knees start to cave; while I hugged my arms around me in anticipation of the fear and shame that were about to come crashing down in response to my display in there.

But I didn't get any farther before Edward moved in, aggressively wrapping an arm all the way around my waist, and pulling me in tightly to his side, before moving at a brisk pace back down the hallway, towards the courtyard doors.

I waited for him to explain, but he said nothing, although he leaned down as he swept me through the outside doors and kissed me on the top of my head. I startled up at him, surprised by the tenderness and intimacy of his action, and saw his eyes smiling back at me, a secret—a happy one—dancing behind them.

I started to feel less ominous about this situation, and moved with more grace and willingness, matching his pace as we progressed quickly across the courtyard. I still didn't understand where we were going, or why, but I was feeling something disturbingly close to trust in Edward, and his intentions.

He took a corner and headed down a hall I hadn't had occasion to go down before, then stopped before an office door and knocked. A male voice called out, "Come on in," and Edward opened the door and held it as he pulled me through.

I was moving less willingly now, afraid of who might be waiting for me in here, and what they would want from me. After Edward closed the door behind us, I even turned and angled myself slightly behind him. If I'd have had time to think about it, I would have felt embarrassed at hiding behind Edward, but I didn't have time, because a man I'd never seen before was rising up from a chair in front of his desk and saying, "Isabella, it's so nice to meet you."

I couldn't find my voice, and instead ducked my head into Edward's side. I didn't know what was wrong with me, and was just getting started on chastising myself for my poor manners in not responding to this stranger's greeting, when I heard (and felt) Edward speak. "She's feeling a little shy, Bob. I'm sure she's glad to meet you too. Or she will be."

I blushed to have Edward needing to cover for my bad manners, but his last words were said with such tenderness, and with his cheek pressed against the top of my head as he pulled me in closer to his body, that I couldn't manage to feel too badly. Instead, I wrapped my arms around Edward's waist and buried my head in his chest once more, feeling the relief of it at the same time as I felt the humiliation of the impulse.

I was surprised, though, at the silence when I did that. There was no laughter, not even Edward's, when I shoved into him, trying to disappear in his embrace. Instead, he stood quietly, one arm still wrapped tightly around me, pulling me impossibly further into his body, the other hand stroking, over and over, down my head and back.

I closed my eyes and started to drift, but was brought back to the moment by the sound of male voices conferring. I didn't catch what they said, but the next instant Edward had bent down and picked me up under my knees, cradling me against his body. I was surprised, but had given up caring how undignified I looked. So I just moved my arms up his torso, wrapping them now around his neck, and tucking my head farther up against his chest, over his beating heart.

He walked a few steps with me in his arms, then sat down on what must have been a sofa, arranging me on him, and tucking a couple pillows in next to me to support my back, and my legs. We sat there, like that, unmoving except for Edward's hand moving over me.

Until the bell rang, and I jumped up and tried to stand out of his lap.

He just pulled me right back down, and rearranged my limbs, putting me back in a cradle hold against his chest. I fought a little, and said, "But Edward, I'll be late to gym!"

He finally laughed, hard and deep, then said, with so much tenderness I thought I'd fly apart into a million pieces, "Since when do you want to go to gym, little girl?"

I stared up at him, speechless, and the silence grew heavy around us as Edward's fingers traced gentle lines down the side of my face, tucking hair behind my ears and wiping away the tears that were slipping out, faster and faster.

No one spoke, but inside me the panic was building and building, crescendoing into a blazing storm of desperate fear. How would I recover now, when the nakedness of my need for him has been exposed, not just in my own home, in my own room, but at _school_? In front of everyone in class? In front of this strange man, who's probably here to help me with my "issues," and tell Charlie what is wrong with me? How ashamed will Charlie feel to hear what I've let Edward do? What I've _wanted_ Edward to do?

I couldn't bear to answer my own questions, and instead closed my eyes and hurled myself, in an instant, out of Edward's arms and lap, and onto my own two feet. Then, looking wildly around the room, I saw the only door and started running for it.

It felt like I was moving underwater, or in slow-motion, and I heard with unasked-for clarity the surprised oath from Edward, and then, as my hand closed in on the door's handle, the sound of his feet moving against the floor.

I turned the handle and pulled, but got no more than a couple inches towards freedom from this utterly unbearable situation before Edward was everywhere: slamming the door shut with the flat of one hand; circling my waist with his arm; turning with me pulled up against him so that he ended with his own back against the door, and his other arm crossing over my chest, pinning both my arms.

I struggled, of course.

But I got nowhere. He simply slid down the door and sat on the ground, bringing his legs up to pin my own legs down too.

My arms and legs were unable to move, but still I struggled, twisting my head, trying to lunge forward. He just reassigned the arm around my waist to the job of holding my head still against him.

Finally, I was completely immobile; so I started to beg. "Please, Edward, let me go!" I pleaded, as the tears poured down my cheeks.

He responded with profanity. "Fuck, Isabella, why are you fighting me?"

I heard the stranger's voice again, and cringed. He said, "I think she's scared, Edward."

I felt Edward's head turn towards the voice, and was grateful to have his attention off of me. "No shit, Bob!" was his crass reply, and I may be mistaken, but he sounded scared too. This surprised me. What did Edward have to lose in this situation? It didn't make sense.

"Ask yourself, _why_ is she scared."

"Fuck! If I knew that, I could fix it!"

"Exactly."

Edward mumbled something under his breath then; I think I made out "self-satisfied prick" and "asshole," but I was pretty sure he wasn't talking to me so I wasn't worrying about it. I was even starting to feel the panic fade a little bit; it's a hard emotion to maintain for long, and Edward wasn't giving any sign of relenting his hold on me. So I relaxed, just a little bit.

But he felt it. I heard him sigh, and then he said, "Thank God, Sweetheart."

Despite my knowing better than to trust his kindness to me, the "Sweetheart" melted me some more. He leaned in and kissed me, on my temple. "Good girl, Bella," he said, leaning his head down next to mine. "You're my good girl—"

And the panic was back! I threw my whole self against his hold and burst to standing, ready to run but knowing the exit was behind me, and that Edward was between me and the door. So I hurled myself farther into the office, and ran behind the enormous desk, losing all the pride and dignity I had ever pretended I had and crawling, on my hands and knees, underneath it. I curled up there, my arms over my head, as small as I could get. I decided I would wait them out—wait him out—and when he finally gave up, as I knew he would, I could leave and figure out how to pretend that none of this had happened.

I heard footsteps approaching, slowly, from behind, and braced myself to be drawn out against my will. But that didn't happen. No one touched me, for a long time. Instead, I heard voices—male voices—going back and forth, in conversation. At first it sounded heated, but their tone became calm, almost soothing.

I couldn't make out the words because of how tightly my arms were pressed against my ears…and because I didn't want to.

Instead, I recited the alphabet over and over, and then fragments of all the poems I could recall; the pledge of allegiance, old phone numbers—anything and everything I could think of so that I didn't have to THINK. Didn't have to acknowledge to myself how badly I had messed up with the one source of hope in my life; how definitely he would be done with me now, after I had rejected him so rudely, so forcefully, so—

I started crying. I hated myself for it, but I couldn't help it. Pretty soon, I was no longer a tightly-wound ball but a sobbing heap, and the second that happened, I felt the heavy warmth of a blanket thrown over my body as two large hands—Edward's hands—reached in and pulled me, dragged me out from under the desk. I was spent, I was completely worn out, but I managed to lift my head and look up for just a moment. And what I saw when I did—it broke me past the point of fixing, I know.

There were Edward's eyes, and there was Edward's face, and written all over them, shining out without question or hesitation, was…was…was _LOVE, _and tenderness, and acceptance, and patience, with no trace of the anger and resentment and rejection that I had been so certain of finding.

I gave up then; I had nothing left to fight with, or to fight for. Edward Cullen was offering me everything I had ever dreamed of, my whole life long. And if it only lasted a minute, or an afternoon, or a day? Well, that was more than I'd ever thought I'd get. I'd have to take it, and be grateful, and just try not to think of what will happen when he leaves me, alone again.


	7. Chapter 7

I was exhausted. I had only been responsible for Isabella for 35 minutes, but I was absolutely worn out. At 2:45 in the afternoon. A small knot of panic formed in my stomach as I started to realize how _hard_ this was going to be, even as I still rode the adrenaline high of excited anticipation about finally being able to respond to her without constantly censoring myself in order to stay within "normal" boundaries. If Bob the Researcher was to be believed, and so far he'd been pretty convincing, there was nothing remotely "normal" about Isabella Swan. Or me.

I had known this, of course, in regards to intellect and background for myself, and in terms of beauty and temperament for Isabella. But I hadn't really stopped to consider the character, drive and emotional assumptions at the root of our cultural ideal and template for romantic relationships. As soon as Bob made me do that just by pointing out how different we both were from average, I could easily see why Isabella would never be "my girlfriend," but always and forever "my girl," as I had intuitively known but hadn't bothered to explain to myself.

Before now. With Bella curled up in a tight little ball, hiding under the school psychologist's desk, her arms over her head. In total protective meltdown, defending herself against an impossibly terrifying threat.

Me.

It had started out so easily, and I had been so sure of myself as I had stared her down through the classroom window. I had been both priming Isabella to leave the classroom with me—and without question or hesitation—as well as hugely enjoying the sexual high of anticipation as I felt her will bend to mine from 50 feet away and behind a heavy door. All the animal part of me could think about was how perfectly I could and would control her once I was within touching distance.

I would feel bad admitting that last part, maybe even a little ashamed, and embarrassed, except that Bob has explained very convincingly to me that relationships are only sustainable when they deliver good things to all the people in them. As he also pointed out, I am not a saint.

Which brings us to the reason the animal part of me was wrong, thinking I would have perfect control of Isabella when I was near enough to touch her. Of course it was my own damn fault. As Bob was now very willing to agree with.

You see, after Isabella had freaked out for the second time in as many minutes, and run in a blind panic away from me _again _before throwing herself under the desk and hiding there, curled up as small as she could make herself…well, I was taking Bob's advice and trying to figure out why she would be so afraid when I was offering her what Bob and I both knew for certain at least part of her desperately wanted, and all of her needed.

And in trying to understand Isabella's reaction so I could manage it better, manage her, I had begun to admit all the ways I had already interfered with her this year, taking control of her behavior for a time only to pull away again without explanation or any promise for the future. As I realized how often and how thoroughly I had done this, the reason for Isabella's terror of me grew more and more clear.

Meanwhile, I saw Bob's cheerful and expectant expression grow more and more shadowed and concerned.

Then, when I finally confessed the worst of it and gave him some basic idea of what I had done with her—no, done _to_ her—in her bedroom back in November before disappearing entirely, without explanation or even contact for weeks…well, I saw his eyes snap with anger and his lips narrow into a thin line of disgust. And I completely agreed with his unspoken assessment.

I'm not sure what he would have done; kicked me out, sending me back to class with Isabella still huddled under a desk in here? Maybe. It's the least of what I deserved.

But I had followed my confession so quickly with the expression of my remorse and shame over my actions, and had swallowed my pride so entirely as to ask him for his advice on repairing the situation, that he had visibly relented, albeit slowly.

"Edward, I need to know this. Please be absolutely truthful in this moment if in no other interaction we ever have together again. Do you realize how badly you betrayed her trust when you left her like that?" he had finally asked.

Tears, the first tears I had shed since long before puberty, tears started rolling down my cheeks. I couldn't even feel ashamed of the unmanly, profoundly un-dominant (or so I thought) display, it was such a relief to finally cry over what I had done to her.

Oh, I'd been angry with myself since that night last November; I had thrown and broken things, yelled at other people as convenient stand-ins for my own failings, even punched my fist in my bedroom wall once shortly after my return. But I hadn't cried.

Until now.

As I confessed the whole sordid story, from Carlisle cornering me in the driveway up until that very moment, with Isabella still huddled motionless under the desk, like a field mouse cowering from a bird of prey, the enormity of the pain—of _her _pain—became clear, clearer than I had allowed myself to see it before. But with the clarity began to come some hope, and along with hope, some relief from my overwhelming guilt and self-disgust, as well as from Bob's disappointment and mistrust.

My rehabilitation in Bob's eyes and in my own started small, with the twitch of a smile in Bob's serious expression as I described through my tears how Isabella had carried herself so rigidly, her chin trembling but held high while her eyes refused to so much as glance my direction, when I had first reappeared in biology class.

The relief grew with Bob's laughter as I described my humiliation in front of the whole school when Isabella ran—more like, sprinted—away from me during the fall sports assembly in December.

And it blossomed into a spiritual springtime of hope and possibility when he grinned at my description of Isabella's and my awkward gift exchange just before Christmas break.

I smiled myself as I remembered how nervous she had been that whole last biology class before break, her hands twitching, and her eyes continually flickering from me to the clock to her open backpack. I had been just about ready to lean in and whisper-ask her what was wrong when Mr. Banner wrapped up class a little early, and gave us the rest of the time for conversation.

Isabella hadn't said anything at first, but had just sat frozen, staring at her open notebook. So I had cued her. "Did you have something for me, Isabella?"

It was a guess, and I wasn't at all certain that what she had for me was material; I thought it possible there was something in her backpack that she was scared about, or that represented something she was scared about, and wanted me to help her with. Either way, I knew my asking her would force her hand, whether she wanted it to or not.

And indeed, as soon as I'd spoken she'd reached into her backpack, pulled out a rectangular tissue-wrapped package tied with a red bow, and shoved it, eyes cast carefully away, in my direction. I had laughed, very lightly, at how transparent my girl could be, before untying the bow and unwrapping the package with unexpectedly great happiness and anticipation.

"They're amoebas," Isabella had said shyly, after she chanced a glance in my direction and must have seen me looking with some puzzlement at the folded material in my hand. She looked away again, and was trembling with what I guessed to be fear and embarrassment when she further clarified: "It's a, a, a pillowcase." Then, her head dropping to her chest, I just made out her mumbled, "I made it for you."

Momentarily speechless at the sweetness, and bravery, of Isabella's gift, I returned my gaze to the garish design. What I had at first thought was loudly-colored printed material was actually many separate small pieces of fabric sewn together with black thread. Then I saw it. Indeed, the black outlines of the outlandishly colored blobs making up the larger rectangular shape looked remarkably like unicellular organisms. There were even little bits of thread in the middle of each blob, representing cell nuclei, I presumed.

I had smiled with great pleasure at the time and care Isabella had put into this gift for me, and risked pushing her a little when I asked with gentle humor, "Is this mitosis or meiosis?"

She had blushed deeper, and dropped her head further, before saying even more shyly, "I don't know; I still get them confused."

I had laughed then, more fully than ever since the day I had left her and betrayed both of us in doing so, before pulling her in for a huge hug. As she curled up into me, despite her feet remaining planted on the floor, I took the opportunity to grab the package I had wedged between two notebooks and drop it into her backpack, still sitting open beside her on the floor.

After it was in and I had zipped the backpack closed, I leaned down and said softly in her ear, "My present to you is in your bag. Don't open it until you get home, okay?"

She nodded, the bell rang, and we had to separate again. _Mitosis or meiosis? _I had asked myself with dry humor, irritated at the continual need for cleaving away from this little person I had longed then, as I longed now, to make a permanent part of myself.

I explained to Bob that I hadn't really expected to hear from Isabella over winter break. If she had liked my present as much as I had thought—and hoped—she would, I expected her to blush and stutter out a thank you our first class back in the new year.

But the very night after our gift exchange, while my family and I were finishing up at a rest stop somewhere in Montana on the way to our cabin in Colorado, my phone rang. I had been following Jasper out the door of the restaurant, but when I saw the name "Charles Swan" on the caller id I stopped and walked right back in, telling Jasper "Be out after I take this call," as I went. Finding a private corner in the near-empty dining area, I pressed "Talk" on the third ring.

"Hello?" I had said, smiling, my heart racing with anticipation.

It wasn't disappointed. There was a heavy silence, laced with the near-panicked breathing from the caller on the other end, and I was suffused with joy as I tried to stop grinning long enough to encourage the scared little girl who'd been brave enough to call me but now couldn't manage to speak.

"Isabella, is that you?" I had asked, as gently as possible.

There was more quiet, but somehow it was a quiet-in-motion this time, and I had known—I just knew—that Isabella was nodding her head. Smiling some more, and biting my lip so as not to laugh out loud, I said, very softly, "Are you nodding your head?"

There was another pause, as I visualized her nodding her response to my question. If we had still been in the same state at that point, I would have been getting in my car to drive over to her by then. Instead, I was stuck in freaking Montana, and Emmett was starting rude hand gestures at me from outside the restaurant windows, anxious to be back on the road so as to get the long car ride over with.

I had turned my back on him, but also reluctantly moved the conversation along. There was no way I was going to have it in front of my siblings, and I knew they would only wait so long before barging back in and harassing me until we left. "Did you like my present?" I asked, even more gently than before.

This got a verbal response. "Oh, Edward, it's beautiful!" she said with so much enthusiasm I think she startled us both. At least, there was silence again after that outburst, until she said, very quietly and hesitantly, "It's perfect. Th-thank you, Edward. Thank you so much."

I wrapped an arm around myself, unspeakably frustrated at not being able to wrap it around her instead, and answered, "You are very welcome, Isabella. When I saw it in a bookstore in London, I knew I had to get it for you. I thought of you every day, you know." I slipped that in at the end, the first verbal acknowledgment of my absence I had made to her, and of how I had spent my time while I was gone.

And then, without thinking about it or I wouldn't have had the nerve, I blurted out, "I'm so sorry I left without saying good-bye." Instantly I felt 20 pounds lighter, although I knew it was just a start; I was sorry for a lot more than just that.

I heard a sharp intake of breath, before Isabella squeaked out, "That's okay, Edward; I didn't mind." I didn't bother challenging her on the lie; I knew she needed to say that, so I let her, but I refused to pretend it was true. I simply said, "Thank you."

Then there was an intense silence again, except for a sniff every few seconds, and I knew she was crying. In a sick way, or maybe I could re-classify that now and say, in a profoundly dominant way, that made me happy. I like being able to make Bella Swan cry; I just want to be around when she's doing it. And then to figure out how to get her to stop when I think she's cried enough, and finally to have the pleasure of making that happen. It's a package deal, tied up with an Isabella bow.

To my continuing great frustration, of course, I was unable to physically be there for any of it in that moment. The best I could do was to try to calm her down with my voice, speaking low but fast as I was tracking the movement of two of my siblings—or rather one sibling and his obnoxious girlfriend—towards the restaurant door. "Isabella, it's okay to cry. I miss you too. It's going to be a long break."

This statement shocked her enough that the sniffing stopped, just as Rose burst through the outside door.

"It is?" I heard a timid, hesitant voice ask incredulously in one ear as a grating, aggressive voice rang in the other, saying, "The world does not revolve around you, Edward Cullen. You've held us up for ten minutes already, let's go!"

I had raised one eyebrow at Rose, challenging both the veracity and intention of her statements, then pointedly turned my back to finish my conversation with Isabella. It was destined to be cut short, however, because Bella had heard Rose's irritated voice, if not her actual words, and was rushing to end the call. "Edward, I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to—"

I broke in with a stern "Isabella Swan, you've done nothing wrong, as usual. I am enjoying this conversation with you, and as I am soon going to be out of range on my cell phone, this will be the last such opportunity I will have before the holidays are over, so don't begrudge me a moment of it. Okay?"

There was another quiet pause, and I couldn't help but laugh a little this time as I said, "Sweetheart, you're nodding again, aren't you?"

I didn't need a videophone to see her cheeks blush, although I was already calculating the odds that she had a computer system sophisticated enough to Skype at home, and given the low odds I advanced on that, moved quickly on to strategizing how to convince Chief Swan to accept a computer upgrade on his daughter's behalf. A nice Macbook, maybe…

"Edward Cullen, you arrogant ass, don't you ignore me!"

Rosalie gets stressed out around the holidays; lots of bad memories from her first family that would cause a person to be understanding and even sympathetically protective of her, the way Emmett is, if she weren't such a complete _bitch_ about expressing her distress. Or maybe I just bring out the worst in her.

Sighing, I had turned and, covering the cell phone for a moment, said, "Rosalie Hale, you entitled pain-in-the-ass, I will be two more minutes here, and they will be spent in private quiet or I will search out and destroy every condom in the state of Colorado, let alone in the Cullen cabin."

A horrified look had sprung up on her face, and Emmett's behind her turned a little pale too, as she said, "You wouldn't dare!"

I merely turned back to the window as I calmly replied, "Just ask yourself how strongly you believe that," before resuming my conversation with Bella.

I had been gratified to hear the restaurant door jingling shut a few seconds later, as I was coaxing Bella to speak again. "Isabella, are you still there—"

But I didn't get a chance to finish that sentence, because she broke in with "Edward, I'll let you go—you have to go! I just, I just wanted you to know how much I like the book. I, I really like the book and it was so kind of you to give it to me. I can't wait to read it—I mean, you know, I've read it already, but I like reading it again. I mean, I read it all the time! Well, not all the time, but—Oh, Edward, it's so beautiful!"

My eyes crinkled with the joy of listening to Isabella ramble about my gift to her, and of knowing I'd gotten something right with her, for once. And of thinking of this gift from me being part of her life now, presumably replacing the beat-up old paperback on her bedside table. Imagining the book there made me feel connected to her in a new and wonderful way, at the same time that it made me hungry for more. More connection; more of me in her life; more of Isabella in mine.

I knew I couldn't tell her that right then, however. Important new ground in our relationship had been broken already that night by the mere fact that she had called me. She'd never done that before, despite my making sure she had my cell number since her second day of school.

Of course, I hadn't called her either, despite having come close on more than one occasion. So I decided I could at least angle for another phone call. "I'm glad you like it. And even more glad that you called to tell me so." _There, that should do it, _I thought.

Sure enough, there was silence again on the phone line, though this time it was contemplative silence, heavy with Isabella's consideration of what I'd just said.

Finally, she squeaked out, "Really?"

My hands ached for her; they really did. I closed my eyes for a moment, reaching out with one and almost feeling the pull of her shirt, the warmth of her skin, the tremor of her body as I ran my open palm against her back, consoling both of us, connecting us—until my open hand hit the cold glass of the restaurant window, and I opened my eyes to see my siblings staring back at me, in varying degrees of impatience, disgust, humor and—in Alice's case—ecstatic happiness. Rose must have filled her in on my likely conversation partner, I surmised.

All of this happened, and was processed by my amped-up brain in no longer than a heartbeat, so it was just enough of a pause to give weight to my words when I responded, "Really, Isabella. You should call me more often."

I could hear fear in her voice when she managed an "Okay," in response, and I knew immediately I'd gone too far. What I hadn't figured out yet was the precise nature of the problem: that I had pushed her onto uncertain ground without the protection of my expectations laid out for her, and was asking her to make herself vulnerable to me without my presence to make that possible. But at least I knew enough to backpedal, fast.

"It would be nice, but maybe you're not ready for that yet, right? So call if you can, but why don't I call you next, when I get cell reception again, after the holidays. Okay?"

There was silence once more, but I knew it was a happy, relieved silence as she nodded her agreement with my plan. Then, catching herself, she breathed out, "Okay, Edward."

"That's my girl."

We were both silent for a moment then, enjoying equally the weight of the sentiment I'd just expressed. I knew she would discount it in her mind as soon as she'd hung up the phone, but in that moment at least, we were both aware of the truth of it. Isabella Swan is my girl. I smiled.

Then I noticed movement outside at the car and saw that Rosalie and Alice were getting into it out there. That was not good. As much as I hated it, I had to go. So I said so, reluctance dripping from every word. "Sweetheart, I have to go now. Alice is about to bite Rosalie."

Bella was predictably horrified. "Oh no! Why?"

"Because they are having a disagreement about my love life. Rosalie thinks I'm too conceited for my own good, and hers, and Alice is mad that you aren't here right now. I better get out there."

"Oh. Okay. Good-bye Edward, thank you for, for calling."

I laughed as I started walking to the door, loving that she'd gotten mixed up on who had called whom. "Good-bye, Sweetheart. Merry Christmas." I winced as I pushed the outside door open, and it wasn't from the cold air that hit me. "'Merry Christmas,'" indeed. That wasn't what I wanted to say—

And then she said it back. "Merry Christmas, Edward." And I heard it. It was there in her voice the same way it had been in mine. We just couldn't say the right words yet, but that was all right; we had time.

I had heard the click of her phone hanging up just as I heard Emmett say a hearty, "Thank God, Edward, things are getting ugly out here. Did you make sweet love to Bella-Bee on the phoneykins?"

For once Rosalie and I were on the same page as she elbowed Emmett in the stomach, hard. I just glared at him as I walked around to the driver's side, pocketing my phone as I went. As the only un-partnered teenager in the vehicle, I was guaranteed the right of driving whenever I desired it, the others being only too happy to simultaneously break the seat-belt laws and the bounds of common decency. I asked only that they not make me regret checking the rearview mirror when I needed to lane change, and they did their best. It wasn't very good.

But I hardly even noticed the back-seat love-making that night, or the soundtrack blasting from my i-Pod, or even once—a little dangerously—the lights of an on-coming semi in the passing lane I was driving in. I was lost in thoughts about Isabella, and what we had, and what I could make of it. It was a very interesting night.

Bob interrupted my silent remembering of that evening with a quiet question of his own. "So what did you give her?"

I stared at him, nonplussed. Then I folded my arms across my chest and said, "Nosy bastard, aren't you?"

"It's in my job description," he answered, unruffled.

I snorted, then leaned down to check on Isabella again. Still no sign of relaxation out of her defensive pose. I had been stealthily moving closer to her as Bob and I had been talking; well, as I had been confessing the error of my Isabella-ways to Bob. I now stood directly behind her, my feet almost-but-not-quite touching her. I desperately wanted just to gather her into my arms and pick her up. But I knew before I could touch her again, I had to convince Bob, and more importantly myself, of my ability to get it right this time.

So I answered, figuring if I couldn't tell him about my Christmas gift to Isabella, I couldn't tell him much of anything. Heaving a half-angry, half-exasperated sigh (I would have to tacitly acknowledge his right to the information, but I wouldn't give it up easily), I said, "It was a book."

Not moving, Bob arched one eyebrow—looking much like me in that moment, despite his balding head and middle-aged paunch—and said, "What book?"

Checking on Isabella's still form one last time, I then bit my lip and looked up at the ceiling—taking a turn as Isabella, I realized—before sighing once more, this time in defeat, and saying, "A Little Princess. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Kids' book, if you're a girl. A really girly kind of girl. Old-fashioned. My sister Alice never read it; I asked." Technically, I'd asked her about the author, trying to figure out if the book Isabella had in pride of place on her nightstand was a typical girls' read, or something else.

When Alice hadn't been familiar with the title (she'd read The Secret Garden by the same author, but hadn't liked it very much, saying only "the main character was awfully whiny,"), I'd moved on. Well, I'd gotten preoccupied with all the logistics of packing up and travelling internationally while abandoning Isabella to face the perils of Forks High without me.

So I'd forgotten about the book, until one afternoon when I was walking down the streets of London, in a foul humor. I had been feeling anxious and upset—guilty, but I hadn't admitted that to myself yet—about Isabella, Alice's terse responses to my ever-more-insistent email inquiries not helping, nor my brother's insensitive off-hand comments on the phone the day before that. "Bella looks even more pitiful than usual, bro," Emmett had said. I was too shocked by the turn in the conversation's subject and miserable about its content to re-direct him before he continued, "Al dragged her home after school yesterday and the poor kid was trembling so hard Mom made her put a sweater on, and her eyes were so big it looked like her eyeballs would just roll on out. Rose was pretty bitchy too, you know how she is, so the B-ster didn't stay long. I think she misses you, little brother. Did you break her pretty little heart?"

So, yes, my mood had been foul indeed. I had escaped the clueless cheerfulness of my travel partner, who was also an old friend from Chicago, and was walking aimlessly in an older part of the city, small storefronts nestled in among elegantly-rehabilitated flats. I had just kicked at a piece of trash on the sidewalk when I looked up into one of those storefronts, and there, displayed in the middle of an artistic array of used and antique volumes, was a beautiful copy of the book. Isabella's book.

The title was in gold-leaf letters, or I would've missed it; the hardbound cover a pen-and-ink illustration of a Victorian-era London street with the main character (as I figured out later), a dark-haired little girl, waving from a horse-drawn carriage. I was drawn myself, pulled by invisible but very strong forces, into the shop and straight back to find the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper had turned out to be a surprisingly modern-looking college-aged woman with nose piercings and a tatt winding up her neck and disappearing into her hair. If requesting to look at a children's book entitled A Little Princess hadn't been such an arousal-killer, I might have found myself inviting her out with us that night in spite of my Isabella anxiety. Or maybe because of it…I was desperate for distraction that whole trip.

As soon as I had the book in my hands, however, I could think of nothing but going back to the hotel and reading it, trying to decipher the book's appeal to 17-year-old Isabella Swan. I read it, and then read it again, irritating my friend no small degree by refusing to go out with him and his London colleagues in carousing that night. And long before his drunken self had stumbled back in, his female conquest for the night at hand, I had finished the book a second time and begun a very illuminating reflection on what, exactly, Isabella liked about it.

My informal conclusion, as I shared with Bob the Researcher, had been "everything." A rich and cultured, highly-intelligent (if her fictional prep school teachers were to be believed) and extremely (if totally unbelievably, to my cynical mind) kind little girl who had been raised by a doting (that was just the sort of old-fashioned language of the story, and I could imagine how _ardently_ my _Isabella_ would _yearn_ to be _doted upon_, almost as easily as I could imagine how much I would enjoy doting on her, and some other more modern things too) father, Sara Crewe was everything I could see Isabella wanting to be, and some of the things she was already. The self-sacrificing generosity, especially—that was Isabella Swan, and I realized for the first time what price she must have to pay to strive for that quality in herself when all around her is advice and expectation to be looking out for number one, and to be doing good only when it's convenient, and untroublesome to one's bottom line.

And then, in the story, tragedy strikes and Sara's father dies. As I had read it, I felt in my own heart the grief with which Isabella would feel the imaginary Sara's loss, and I sensed too how it would resonate with Isabella's own, very real, losses, and fears. When I read about Sara bravely facing the schoolroom full of her insensitive former peers and her cruel new employer, my mind flew to memories of Bella arriving—visibly terrified—in biology class for the first time; of her marching in to math class every morning, the dread etched in every rigid muscle of her body and worry line on her face; of her timidly entering the lunchroom, the days she was brave enough not to skip out in the library or courtyard or bathroom instead, with her eyes carefully trained on the floor so as not to scare or startle herself with the sheer volume and movement of people. It wasn't so much that the challenges were the same, as the degree of courage and spiritual bravery was identical between the real and fictional girl, as was the lack of any visible support figures waiting in the wings to intervene if things got too hard, or too scary... not counting the late-appearing "Indian gentleman" and his manservant Ramdass (kick-ass dude) in the house next door to Sara Crewe. Or me.

And so I explained to Bob how I believe my girl takes cathartic comfort in her alter-ego's struggles, and most especially how much joy I suspect she feels in reading of the miracles that occur for Sara, transforming the girl's suffering into peace and comfort and security again—with the impossible kindness of fictional Sara Crewe remaining as constant as the naïve affection in Isabella's eyes.

Bob and I were quiet for a bit after this explanation. I felt overwhelmed with emotion, not all of it unpleasant, and looked down to check on Isabella as I tried to sift through the current assemblage of feelings and identify their sources. I knew some—make that a lot—of it was hers; somehow in caring for this little person, I had picked up the thread of her private inner life, like tuning in to some faint and crackly but still intelligible AM station. The tag line of which would have to be, "Isabella AM: All Emotion, All the Time."

And then there was a news flash, or maybe a test of the Emergency Broadcast System coming over the emotional airwaves. Except it wasn't really a test, but the real thing, as became evident when Isabella's shoulders slumped and her arms gave way as she started to sob.

She didn't get far; just a few loud inhales before I had her gathered up in my arms again, only knocking the back of my head on the underside of the desk once before standing and striding back over to the couch. I didn't have a very good grip on her due to the weight of the blanket I had thrown over her before picking her up, but the weight of the blanket also helped contain her; make her feel safe.

She's a hider, my Isabella, and so as I arranged her on my lap once more I was careful to keep the blanket over her head at all times, with just a small gap in front of her face so she could breathe. And so I could peek in at her before reaching in one hand to hold her head against my heart, running my thumb gently, back and forth, along her wet cheek.

Whatever fight had propelled her out of my arms twice earlier had apparently drained out of her during her time spent hiding under the desk, for now Isabella's body was heavy with resignation in my arms. It made me sad to be so certain that it _was_ resignation, and not something more akin to hope, or to trust. But it was a starting place, and I would have to take it, make the most of it, and be grateful.

Bob agreed, the asshole. "Well, I see Isabella's decided to give you another chance, so I guess I better follow her lead." At least he smiled at me as he said it.

I had to bite back at least a little though. So I responded, "And despite the lack of any useful advice from you just now, I'm willing to give you a shot too. With her," I added, rather stupidly, I'll admit.

He didn't rise to my bait. Instead, he nodded in agreement, and said mildly, "It looks like I'm not going to be of much help to you in the advice department after all, Edward. Other than reading you the riot act if you show any signs of getting ready to desert her again, I'd say the best you can hope for from me is a little academic perspective to enhance your own understanding of her. It's far superior to mine already, that much is clear. Of course, I might also be useful as a mirror, a very intrigued and interested mirror, to reflect back to you what you already instinctively know." He paused, looking off over my shoulder a little bit as if debating something with himself, then looking back at me as he gestured to the lump that was Isabella. "I mean, look at her. Even after all the ways you've left her hanging, she's made herself completely vulnerable to you. Again."

I smiled at that, looking down at her too. He was right. I did know what I needed to; I could read Isabella with as much ease as any book I'd ever seen. And I had definite ideas about beginning paths to take with her; if the end destinations were a little too hazy to see, or maybe too overwhelming right now to acknowledge, well, we had time. We were still in high school, for God's sake; we had the rest of our adult lives to—

I interrupted myself mid-thought. There was something wrong with what I had just said in my head. I ran over it a second time, and realized the problem was with the word "adult." Maybe it was having just discussed Isabella's book selection; maybe it was the infant-like appearance of the swaddled girl in my lap. And definitely it was the new freedom Bob the Sex-Ed Researcher had introduced in Isabella's and my relationship, naming and validating the difference between us from all the other couples I knew. But whatever its source or sources, a new awareness had taken root in my mind: Isabella was nowhere near an "adult" the way adults were supposed to be. And if I played my cards right, and took care of her the way she deserved, she never would be.

My eyes flicked up to Bob's as this realization crystallized in my mind. Creepy mother—all right, I suppose if I'm going to be working with him I should tone it down some—the creepy SOB stared right back at me and read my mind again. "So now you understand."

I kept staring. He was taking a free ride on the Isabella-Edward express; I felt and feel no compunction to give him any more information than I have to in order to provide Isabella with what she needs. And in that moment? I had all her needs covered, literally; I had her entire universe condensed down to the feel, sound, sight and smell of my body around hers. For the first time ever, we were both whole, and I didn't need Dr. Bob to keep us that way.

Except, I remembered with a start, I did. Not because of her, and not because of me, but because of all the meddlesome adults out there. People like her father, and mine. And then with no small relief I realized _why_ I had kept pulling away from her up until now: those adults wouldn't have allowed me to take care of her the way I wanted to; the way she needed me to. They would have brought me up short the moment one of them saw me stepping out of the acceptable bounds for teenage relationships; they would have accused me of manipulating—maybe even abusing—her, and they would have made her feel more ashamed than she did already, as hard as it was to believe that was possible.

I took a deep and grateful breath as I felt the crushing burden of guilt lift. So I wasn't a total asshole after all. Thank God.

But that meant I had to hold on to Bob; figure out how to use him as a shield, and a battering-ram as necessary. So finally, with one curt head motion, I gave him the obeisance he was looking for, the tribute his pride required. And, a small voice reminded me in my head, the reassurance his conscience deserved. I nodded. _Yes, I understand._

He nodded back, just as curt. "Good."

Rising from his seat and glancing up at the clock, he suddenly became all business. "I presume you'll want to get her out of here before school lets out for the day?"

Surprised by the abrupt change in topic, I nonetheless easily agreed. No way was Isabella in shape to pretend normalcy while marching down the end-of-day locker gauntlet of gossip-hungry peers. "I'll just drive her—" I started, but then remembered that I had driven my siblings—all of them—to school that morning, as was usual of late. Rose and Jasper don't have their own transportation, Emmett's still without a license as a result of his Illinois legal troubles, and Alice—Alice has had her license temporarily revoked by my parents after she was caught going 90 on a girls' outing to Seattle last month.

Looking at the clock myself and calculating trip times, I said, mostly to myself, "They'll just have to wait. I'll take Isabella home first, then come back—"

I broke off again as Bob held up his hand, interrupting me by saying, "I've got an offer of a ride for you. And her," and as he added that last bit, he looked down at the blanket burrito in my lap and smiled. With affection, the bastard. _Smiling eyes off my girl, Bob._

"Whoa." Bob's eyes were back on me, serious again, though a smile still played on his lips. "If I didn't have 50 pounds and a couple decades on you, Edward, not to mention the benefit of a position of considerable authority and influence, I think I might have pissed my pants just now. You looked like a predator defending your kill. Or a mother defending its young."

Then he laughed, and I smirked, because we both knew: that's exactly what I was. Both of them, in some weird but beautifully efficient and immensely satisfying combination. Only he'd left one part out: a mountain lion defending its mate. As I thought of this omission, I knew the truth of it in an electric arc from mind to …well, other mind. And I felt whole. Complete. Ecstatic. Terrified. And just a little nauseous.

"A ride?" I asked, curious, my upstairs mind getting back on task.

"With your father," Bob said, some humor in his voice. "Apparently he feels reparations are in order given how he interfered with you and Isabella in the fall. Either that, or your mother guilted him into it. I couldn't tell for sure; you'd know better than me anyway."

"You spoke with my father?" I was shocked.

"Earlier today. We had a meeting with all the parents, and the Vice Principal too. She's a little wary, but Chief Swan's support turned the tide."

"What were you discussing?"

"The appropriateness of this little project of mine, as it concerns the two of you," Bob responded in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Oh." I didn't know why I'd assumed he'd cooked this all up on his own, without outside approval, but I had. I wasn't sure what to make of the parental involvement. Surely that would be helpful, right?

I must have looked that question even though I didn't ask it, because Bob responded, "I think it will be to your benefit to have the adults on board, Edward, and it will definitely be to hers."

I nodded absent-mindedly, not really in a mood to argue and needing to think it over anyway, not to mention find out what exactly had been said at this meeting.

"Besides," Bob continued, "I needed to make other arrangements for Isabella if you were unable, or unwilling, to step in."

"Other arrangements?" This I needed to know, now.

"Don't worry," he said, placatingly, hands down and out in front of him, "they're irrelevant now. Unless you want an out? Last chance, you know, without fucking her up beyond repair."

I looked at him with disgust, not bothering to respond verbally.

"All right," he said, with equanimity, "just checking. Due process, and all."

"You're not arresting me," I said with acid in my tone.

"No, but you're taking on a life sentence here."

I stared at him. I hadn't thought of it that way, but he was right. I must be insane. Fuck it. Any other option had ceased to exist longer ago than today. I reiterated, out loud: "Fuck it."

"Okay, Edward. I believe you. Let's call your Dad."

Laughing lightly, I said, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but all right. Call Carlisle. Ask him to pick us up at the main office door in"—I checked my watch as I thought through our route-"ten minutes." I wasn't going to be moving quickly with Bella in my arms, but I couldn't linger either. School would be out for the day in 15 minutes, and we needed to have cleared the parking lot by then.

"Thank you, Bob," I said as I started to rise. I felt the weight I would be carrying and sat back down, deciding to ease the trip for me considerably by getting my girl to participate.

"Bella, Sweetheart," I whispered into her cave, "reach up and put your arms around my neck. I'm going to get you out of here, but I need you to hold on tight."

There was a few seconds' delay, but then there was movement under the blanket as two hesitant hands started inching up my chest. I sped up the process by reaching down with my own hand and pulling first one, than the other of hers up and around my neck, where they found each other and latched on to her arms, her head rising too and finding a safe spot tucked between my chin and my clavicle. The blanket was scratchy against my cheek, and I regretted not being able to bend down and place soft kisses on her head—that's diagnostic in how far gone I am in adoring Isabella Swan, for your information—but I was happy to tolerate both discomforts as a small price to pay for her sense of safety.

Girded for the trip to our transport home, with a side-trip to drop off my car keys for Jasper in the main office on the way, I rose again with Isabella in my arms and this time started for the door. I had almost forgotten for the moment about Bob when he said, reaching the door ahead of me and pulling it open so we could pass through, "Check in with me tonight, when she's asleep, would you please? I want to go over some ideas for managing her school day better, and I need to know your plan for handling her return to school."

I thought it over for a moment and decided that made sense, except for the part about Isabella being asleep. _What would that matter? _and _How would I know if she's sleeping?_ both flashed through my mind. I looked at Bob in some confusion, and saw surprise staring back.

"You weren't planning on dropping her off at _her _home, were you Edward?" he said quietly, almost disbelievingly.

_Shit. That's exactly what I was planning. What am I—_and then I saw it. Yawning before me was the enormous pit of all my previous arrogant presumption in handling Isabella, in caring for her only to not-care for her with brutal disconnection between the two. I almost sat back down on the spot, despite the lack of any place to sit. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so careless with _her_?

I drew a deep breath and realized I could say instead, "_almost _have been so stupid, and so careless," thanks to Bob. Gratitude washed through me, over me like a wave, cleansing me of the arrogance and over-confidence that had almost been my undoing, and worse hers, again. "_Thank you,_ Bob," I said once more, with infinitely more heart and soul behind it this time.

He smiled, and it was real and true as well. "You're very welcome, Edward," he said as he approached my precious burden, laying one hand gently on her back. Isabella shuddered slightly in response, and I automatically tightened my hold on her reassuringly, then leaned in to whisper to her, "You're okay; it's just Bob; you're safe, Sweetheart."

And I did not glare; I did not threaten; I did not snarl, bite or lunge at the man daring to touch and even to frighten, though unintentionally, my girl. Bob the Researcher has apparently just earned the right to approach my kill; my child; my mate. So he can dine with me, and watch me parent; and I know now I will probably even discuss the earth-shattering sex I plan to have with Isabella (though I draw the line at letting him watch that), because he has kept me from destroying my future. He has just made that future possible. Holy Hell, I am in lifelong debt to a homely, flabby, middle-aged and extremely nosy researcher of teenagers' sex habits.

Well, it could be worse. And looking down at the blanket-covered lump that is Isabella in my arms, I know with certainty: she's worth it.


End file.
